she finally does arrive, it’s a mob scene with reporters and news camera crews rushing toward her. The World War II and Korea vets, along with their wives, immediately start shouting at Fonda: “Communist! Traitor!” Then, suddenly, almost as if on cue, they begin singing “God Bless America.” For a moment it seems as if the whole thing is about to disintegrate into chaos.
Somehow, though, I am able to speak, thanking Jane Fonda for coming, and then inviting some of our Patients’/Workers’ Rights Committee members to share their stories. Fonda is visibly moved and several times I notice tears running down her cheek. When it’s finally her turn to speak, everyone is listening, with the exception of the counterdemonstrators, who continue to attempt to drown out our event by singing patriotic songs. Fonda starts by telling everyone how grateful she is to have been invited to attend our press conference.
“I can’t begin to tell you how much respect I have for all of you and how deeply moved I am today after listening to your stories,” she says, her voice beginning to crack as more tears stream down her face. “This is very wrong!” She sighs deeply and shakes her head. “This shouldn’t be happening in America, not to our veterans . . . You have sacrificed so much . . . I had no idea our veterans were being treated this way.” She goes on to say that she will do everything she can to get the word out concerning the crisis regarding paralyzed veterans at the VA.
When she finishes we lead her and the press onto the SCI ward where we introduce her to several bedridden patients, who because of their medical conditions could not attend the press conference but nonetheless had agreed to testify. With news cameras and reporters surrounding their bedsides and with tears in their eyes, they bravely share the harrowing ordeals they have suffered at the hands of the VA; Fonda listens intently, seeming almost in a state of shock.
* * *
Not long after Jane Fonda has left and the press conference has ended, we are all over the news. Patients everywhere in the hospital, including paraplegics and quadriplegics on the SCI ward, watch the six o’clock news from their beds as the media report, in their lead stories, that there is trouble down at the Long Beach VA.
The next morning the powers-that-be at the hospital are visibly upset. Several representatives of the hospital administration come down to our ward and start asking questions in a not-too-friendly manner. “Who started this thing?” I remember one guy in a suit and tie asking, sounding very frustrated. “What’s going on down here?”
When Will Your Funeral Be?
A few evenings later, after being transferred back into my bed on C ward, one of the aides tells me I have a phone call. Back then there was only one phone on the ward, an old clunky contraption on wheels with a long extension cord that they would have to push down to a patient’s bedside when he got a call. It made a distinctive squeaky sound.
My first thought is that my ex-girlfriend Carol has finally decided to call me. I get all excited, my heart pounding in my chest, as the aide hands me the phone.
“Hello!” I say, though there is nothing but silence on the other end. “Hello?” I repeat, but still no one says a thing.
Finally, a man in a deep, gruff voice comes on the line and asks me if I am Ron Kovic.
“Yes,” I say, “this is Ron Kovic.”
“Well, we’re calling today to find out when your funeral is. We’d really like to know when it’s going to be so we can all attend.”
I immediately wonder if it’s someone from the LAPD Red Squad or one of the undercover cops who threw me out of my wheelchair during a protest in front of the Reelect Nixon campaign headquarters in 1972. Determined not to let him frighten me, I respond in a calm voice, “Thanks so much for calling me today, I’ll definitely let you know when my funeral is!” Suddenly there’s a loud click on the other end of the phone. My heart is still pounding in my chest when one of the aides finally comes by to take the phone away.
I realize at this moment how cruel these people can be, how even a marine combat veteran paralyzed from his midchest down, strapped to a gurney trying to heal a bedsore, is not exempt from their dirty tricks. Regardless, I am proud that I maintained my composure and that he was the one to hang up the phone. Not me.
I know now that I’m a target and that they can come in at any time, walk up to my bed when I’m sleeping, and kill me. How easy it would be for them to enter an open ward at any hour of the day or night and shoot me. I imagine them paying off a nurse or an aide who despises me for my political views to give me the wrong medication. Or perhaps they will get to one of the troubled vets from the psych ward and send him in to harm me.
I can hardly sleep and decide not to tell the others about the call—afraid that it might frighten them and keep them from continuing on with the struggle. I do my best to put on a brave face, but the thoughts of what could happen at times threaten to overwhelm me.
I eventually tell Bobby Mays about the phone call and he begins sleeping by my bedside every night, determined to keep others from harming me. I tell him it isn’t necessary but he insists.
This is the third time my life has been threatened for protesting and speaking out. The first was at a high school on Long Island in the spring of 1971 when my very first speech against the war was interrupted by a bomb threat. The second time was after my arrest in front of the Reelect Nixon headquarters in ’72 when the arresting officer threatened to throw me off the roof of the LA County jail.
When I first came to the hospital I thought, well, at least I’ll get some rest from all the protests and madness going on outside this place—the demonstrations, police informants hounding our every move, our phones being tapped, etc.—but after that call, I realize this is not to be the case at all.
The following morning I push my gurney to a quiet garden in back of the ward. I feel helpless and afraid. After everything I went through in the war and the hospital, I have begun to wonder whether there is a God or not. Yet, out of sheer desperation, I start to pray. I ask God for His help and guidance, telling Him that I feel weak and frightened and don’t know if I can go on. I remember pushing my face into my pillow on my gurney so no one would see me crying. I ask God to forgive the person who threatened my life and to give me the strength to continue organizing despite the threats. With tears streaming down my face I reach out, telling God how frightened I am. “I’m so scared, God. I’m sick with fear. I feel so vulnerable, so overwhelmed by all of this. Please help me, God. Please protect me.”
I wipe the tears from my eyes as a feeling of peace like I have never felt before sweeps over me and I leave the garden no longer afraid, knowing now that what I am doing is the right thing. I can’t explain it, but something deep within tells me that what I am doing is right, that I am in the right place at the right time and God wants me to continue my work and He will protect me . . . that I mustn’t be afraid . . . I will continue to organize the Patients’/Workers’ Rights Committee and hold our meetings every Thursday night, and if anyone wants to harass me and threaten my life, they can, but from now on I will not be afraid.
Whether there is a God or not, the talk today in the garden seems to have at least temporarily calmed my fears and given me a sense of strength and well being that up until this point I have lacked.
The Threats and Intimidation Continue
Several weeks later that newfound faith and strength is tested when during one of our Thursday-night gatherings, Marty Stetson tells me there’s a rumor going around the hospital that someone is planning to poison me.
