Hello and thank you for downloading Witness from the BBC World Service.

70 years ago, on the 4th of July, 1946, a man was born whose life story would eventually come to reflect America's difficult relationship

with the Vietnam War. His name was Ron Kovic and in 2011 he spoke to Alan Johnson

about patriotism and pacifism.

As the United States sinks deeper into the war in Vietnam,

Ron Kovic is growing up in Masopiqua, New York. He is very much an all-American boy. Along with his love of

baseball and John Wayne movies, Ron even shares his birthday with his country. He was born on the 4th of July.

I remember being very much influenced by the death of President John F. Kennedy that affected me very

very deeply and I remember Kennedy's inspiring call to service

ask not what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country and

I remember volunteering to join the United States Marine Corps

not long after graduating from high school.

I believed in my country, my country could do no wrong and I wanted to be the best United States Marine that I could be.

I couldn't wait to fight my first war.

Soon Ron Kovick got his wish and found himself on the battlefield in Vietnam.

He even went on to volunteer for a second tour of duty there and on January 20th 1968 he was leading an

attack on an enemy force spotted in a village as he advanced across open ground, firing at a pagoda and nearby buildings, a bullet

hit him in the foot, tearing away his heel. And then he was shot again.

There was a loud crack in the right side of my face and it sounded like a firecracker and

then there was this tremendous as if I had been hit by a train or by an automobile,

I was pushed backward.

My first thought was that I had been, perhaps I'd been blown in half by a mortar because all of a sudden my body was gone was missing

...