Cinema Messages

“Born on the Fourth of July” is one of those films that left-wing Hollywood and the media rave about, but it boils down to just another anti-American movie.

Oliver Stone portrays his “hero” as the only decent or intelligent American soldier and presents Ron Kovic as somehow admirable because he turns against America and our ally.

If Hollywood ever wants to get truthful about Vietnam, it should do a movie about heroic Americans such as double amputee B.T. Collins, paraplegic Max Cleland, the Medal of Honor recipients, any of the 570,000 Vietnam veterans in the Veterans of Foreign Wars or any of the 90% of Vietnam veterans who answered yes to the 1980 Lou Harris poll asking, “Are you proud of your service in the Vietnam War?”

It is revealing that at the movie’s end, for any viewers who missed the political point, Stone and Kovic dedicate the film to one of the flakiest of protesters, the late Abbie Hoffman.

PETE LAURENCE

Vietnam Green Beret

Clayton, Calif.