Born on the Fourth of July

Chapter 7’s first four sections take place entirely in Vietnam. The chapter opens with Kovic having just killed the corporal from Georgia he’s been alluding to throughout the book. He states that “all his life he’d wanted to be a winner” but that all his hopes and dreams “were gone forever” because he’d just killed a fellow American soldier (194). He explains that his outfit was retreating from enemy fire when he accidentally shot the corporal because, as he tells the lieutenant, “It was dark and I couldn’t tell” (195). Upon killing him, Kovic panics and turns his gun on himself but doesn’t pull the trigger because he begins “feeling the strange power of a man who had just killed someone” (197). He recognizes a change in himself and feels that being a Marine is “very different from what he had ever thought possible” (197).

Kovic tells a major about what happened the next day. His outfit had tied up a pregnant woman and then chaos had ensued as others attacked them before he accidentally shot the corporal. The major tells him that “it gets very hard out there” and that “it’s very hard to tell what’s happening” (201).