Ron Kovic

Hurricane Street


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       Table of Contents

       Introduction

       Part I: THE HOSPITAL

       The SCI Ward

       It’s Fucking Scary in Here

       The Patients’/Workers’ Rights Committee

       When Will Your Funeral Be?

       The Threats and Intimidation Continue

       Massapequa

       Hurricane Street

       We Organize

       The Last Supper

       Part II: THE STRIKE

       Tuesday, February 12, 1974

       Wednesday, February 13, 1974

       Thursday, February 14, 1974

       Friday, February 15, 1974

       Saturday, February 16, 1974

       Sunday, February 17, 1974

       Monday, February 18, 1974

       Tuesday, February 19, 1974

       Wednesday, February 20, 1974

       Thursday, February 21, 1974

       Friday, February 22, 1974

       Saturday, February 23, 1974

       Sunday, February 24, 1974

       Monday, February 25, 1974

       Tuesday, February 26, 1974

       Wednesday, February 27, 1974

       Thursday, February 28, 1974

       Friday, March 1, 1974

       Saturday, March 2, 1974

       Part III: THE AFTERMATH

       Victory!

       Washington, DC

       The March

       We Take the Monument

       The Meeting

       Home

       Epilogue

       Postscript

       Acknowledgments

       E-book Extras

       Excerpt: Born on the Fourth of July

       About Ron Kovic

       Copyright & Credits

       About Akashic Books

       for TerriAnn Ferren

      To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan . . . —President Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865

      This is the story of a few brave men who, though severely wounded in war, returned home to fight a different battle.

      Introduction

      Over forty years have now passed since that day in 1974 when we first entered the office of Senator Alan M. Cranston of California and began a sit-in which would quickly escalate into a hunger strike and touch the nation. Hurricane Street is a work of both memory and fiction. It is my own recollection of the strike and all that followed that spring and summer. Some names and details have been changed out of respect for people’s privacy, and to fill gaps in my memory. (One such memory gap is a meeting that took place early in the strike with Senator Cranston on February 13, 1974. Unfortunately, nothing substantive came of that meeting, which is probably why it didn’t lodge itself in my memory, and why I have not included it in this book.) For the sake of presenting a coherent story line, I have also taken the liberty of creating two characters: Tony D., who is essentially a composite of several sight-impaired Vietnam veterans I knew while I was a patient at the Bronx and Long Beach VA hospitals; and Joe Hayward, who represents a number of seriously wounded veterans I also knew during that period. In addition, I have combined the two AVM takeovers of the Washington Monument in the spring and summer of 1974 into one single action.

      Each night during the strike after the lights were turned out, I would make entries in my diary using a small penlight. Some of the entries were very brief while others were quite long. Back then I sensed the need, even