Meet Ron Kovic

[close] "I began to question whether I or the others who had gone to that war had gone for nothing."

Ron Kovic served two tours of duty during the Vietnam War. Injured in the line of duty in 1968, he returned home, paralyzed from the chest down and questioning the system that sent American soldiers into battle. He would go on to become one of the country's most outspoken opponents of the Vietnam War, a journey he details in his now-classic memoir Born on the Fourth of July.

Here Kovic talks about what drove him to military service, how his perspective changed while serving in Vietnam, and why he is so proud to be called a peacemaker.