David davis provides the history of the first Wheelchair Basketball Team comprise a world war ii veterans. Its a great honor to be at bromance. I spent many evenings on the second floor listening to local authors speak about their the o really appreciate the invitation. What to say hi to everybody out there who i havent i have beeo see facetoface in person, so thank you for tuning in. Obviously doubly honored ron kovic has agreed to speak with me tonight about the book. Ron kovic, not kovac. Not go back. We were introduced by tom hobart, sports need a writer and ron has been very encouraging and helped me quite a bit with this book in terms of background and research and so forth. Ron of course was a vietnam veteran. Most of the book that i wrote is about world war ii veterans are just want to give you a little background before we start speaking. Before world war ii if you are paralyzed you were pretty much a dead ender, and no hope or as they were called. The average life span was a for someone wounded in world war i. World war ii was a game changer. The advent of penicillin, sulfa drugs. They had surgical units right behind the battlefield, right behind the front lines and they had better evacuation back to the mainland. By the end of world war ii you had a cohort of about 2500 u. S. Veterans who were paralyz who return home, and they had a chance at a normal life. This was the first cohort that was going to have this and it presented dilemma and a bit of an issue for the v. A. , veterans administration, and the government. In other wds, how do we take care of tse men. The four, basically they we immobilized in fullbodied plaster casts, shunted off to institutions or basically ift were a family they were in the family home and had no mobility. The crochet or the term confined to a wheelchair wasrue because you couldnt move around. Cliche. They were like living room furniture. That again was a game changer. Jennings were wheelchairs that were made locally and they were again change because they could fold. You can put them in the carnd then drive away go to a job, start a family and so forth. These 2500 paralyzedeterans were pioneers, and one of the key attbutes of rehabilitation, and rehabilitation medicine in the v. A. Hospitals was recreation. We are going to roll a clip now. You will see one of the first wheelchair basketball games ever played. It was at Madison Square garden in 1948, and you will see their using the Everest Jennings chairs which in todays world we would think of as just incredibly oldfashioned and not very maneuverable. But back then those were state of the art. This is a game featuring paralyzed veterans from critchett hospital in massachusetts. They came down the new york city to play against a team from staten island, and you can see again is very sort of crude. Theres not a whole lot of offense of place and things like that, but this is the first time that paralyzed veterans and paraplegics are displayed in front of crowds. You have 15,000 people admiring the pioneers, these veterans, who had managed to start a normal life, and sport was part of that. One of the key teams and we will see this in the next clip, but one of the key teams and by the way,his was sort of the result. You had media coverage. This was one of the players in that game, jack gerhard. He was wounded in normandy and here he is on the cover of newsweek. Every meeting outlet cover these guys from the communist in the worker to. Out here in Southern California there was a bastion of wheelchair basketball and this was out of the early ham v. A. Hospital in van nuys in the san fernando valley. This caught the attention of hollywood, and years Marlon Brando in his first hollywood movie star, and he plays a paralyzed veteran, and he is rehabbing and some of this was filled out in van nuys. These are some of the exercises and its one of the reasons why wheelchair basketball became so popular both for the veterans but also by the doctors how did it, was it did help with the chest, the arms, the shoulder muscles which are so important for paraplegics. For helping them to move around and to have the strength to be able to do this. Heres what i was mentioning about the Everest Jennings. Hes going into the car with his costar there. That holds up and goes right into the second seat, and he can drive away. The are speciallydapted cars for paraplegics. You will see the house that he is now walking in. These paralyzed veterans form the vba, which stirs this, the paralyzed veterans of america, when this team from birmingham would go on the road, they would stop in washington, d. C. And Lobby Congress for rights, for disability rights including adapted cars and a stipend to build aouse that had a rant and so forth. Here we see brando playing some wheelchair basketball, and playing sports. This was water polo that was shot at the pool there. One of the veterans who i write extensively about in the book was in this film as an extra. They used a bunch of extras who were paralyzed veterans as background actors. And again you see obviously brando. This was a role that was very attractive to him, his first role after playing a streetcar namedesire and becing a star ron, of course youre not played by Marlon Brando. You were played by tom cruise. David, i just wanted to say, first of all its a pleasure to be participating with you today. My very first wheelchair was a Everest Jennings wheelair. You may be feel very old buty very first chair was a everest jenngs, and it was the first chair that i had and it worked for me back tn. It was 1968. I was shot january 20, 18 on my second tour of duty as United States marine in vietnam in the dmz area, and i was shot to the right shoulder and it went through my right lung and paralyd me for my mid chest down. Ive been paralyzed my mid chest down for the last, what is it, 52, 53 years . 53 years. I remember reading, looking yesterday and realizing that even up to world war ii a lot of the paraplegics and quadriplegics were not living past a year or 18 months as you said. Im just so grateful to be alive, still alive. I have lost many friends along the way. This is not an easy disability, in easy physical challenge to deal with. Its psychologically, emotionally, its a great challenge. A great challenge. Maybe you can tell us, tell me, tell the audience about that. When you came back you ended up at the bronx v. A. As i recall. The bronx v. A. Which ironically was later investigated by life magazine. They did a front cover, our forgotten wounded was a title, our forgotten wounded. It really shook up the whole v. A. It was a story of neglect of the young men coming back from vietnam with some of the most catastrophic injuries you could imagine. Paraplegics, quadriplegics. Young men paralyzed from the neck down. Some of the most severe injuries you could imagine being neglected, rats on the ward, overcrowded conditions. Im sure many of you who are watching this right now might have seen this in a movie born on the fourth of july. All of that was true and thats how i begin my life at the age of 21. I am in this place, not only was it even with paralysis, just the shock of having lost threequarters of my body, everything from my chest down, never be able to make children, just, but i must say, i must say from the moment i left the field of battle and and i received lt right from the Catholic Church because he didnt know whether its going to make it or not in the intensive care ward. I am so, i have never not felt grateful to be alive to every single day. The matter how hard it is got over the years and theres been some really difficult moments especially in the early years. Depressing moments come moments when i drank way too much, moments when i came close to giving up and leaving this world way too early. I was always, there was a part of me that new that i made it out of there just barely. Senator cotton out of there. After i was shot first in the front, in my right foot, the bullet went through my foot and blew out the back of my heel. I could no longer walk. I went into a prone position and it took a round to my right shoulder, collapse my right lung and severed my spine from the mid chest down. I could move in my rifle was in the same. My rifle wouldnt fire anymore. It was jammed. The first marine to come up from behind was shot in the heart right behind me he was killed instantly, killed right in back of me. And another marine came back a w moments later, came up from behind, grabbed me, through the over his shoulder and randy back under heavy fire and saved my life. I have never forgotten that date and ive never forgotten how lucky i am to have survived. Even during the most difficult times, those early years were very, very difficult. Many of the young men severely wounded, paralyzed veterans, quadriplegics, those first figures were too much for them but some of us decided to go on. I remembered sitting in my room in my wheelchair in massapequa long island all alone. I remember having this feeling, thinking to myself, how am i going to make it through another day . I had just met we would at some of the veterans of world war ii and korea coming to our room at the bronx v. A. And they were inspiring. Just to see these guys who had been in wheelchairs for five years, ten years, even longer. I couldnt believe it because i was just trying to make it through every single day, was psychologically, emotionally, physically overwhelming. I had no idea how i was going to live with this thing and deal with it everyday. Every day. I could have never imagined, i could have never imagined that i would have the future i eventually had, that i was eventually able to address the Democratic National convention in your, that i was able to write a a book, that became a bestseller, and i was able to eventually have a movie made of my life. I feel very blessed. My life in many ways has been a blessing in disguise. Athleticism and you talk about the whole wheelchair basketball. When i got out of the hospital, david, i decided to the g. I. Bill i had the opportunity, and it wasnt a great student believe me. I had to go to Summer School in Massapequa High School just to get a job diploma which was mailed to me. I wasnt going to college and i had decided im going to join the marines can make my mom and dad and proud you know and ended up coming home paralyzed. But i remember it was just how did you get started, ron, in terms of ask you came out of the v. A. Hospital wheelchair basketball yourself, how did that happen . First of all i was able to go to college, even with, you know, my academic standing was not the best at that time. I was still able to go. They gave me the opportunity to go at Hofstra University had a Basketball Team. Was called the rolling dutchmen. I grew up wanting to play for the new york yankees. Little league and basketball and football and wiffleball. If you came from new york you were heavily into sports. We were in our neighborhood, and the yankees and Mickey Mantle and roger maris. I mean, all these things up being an athletic ego. I was very strong, very athletic, i was a gymnast in high school. Even before i joined the rolling dutchmen, the Wheelchair Basketball Team,hich was quite an experience for me, i used to shoot baskets went i would have some time. There was a court just at the v. A. Just down this little hill, and will basketball court. I would go down there by myself for hours, two, three hours and i wou just shoot and i loved it. I did that by myself until i found out that they had this organize Wheelchair Basketball Team at the university. I decided to join. No what led me tooin was i had my First Political organization that i decided to join, very interestingly enough, was called push, People United to support the handicap. So my First Political organization, and as the years followed up would be involved in a lot of politics and a lot of protests, but this organization was made of exclusively paraplegics, quadrlegics, not just veterans but cerebral palsy, the bnd, site impaired, you nam it we had it. Back then you have to underand it was a vy tumultuous time. It with people in the streets, demonstrations, revolution was in the a. And even this group that met once the weak at Hofstra University which eventually led me to join the Basketball Team, this group was filled wit passion, filled with, you know, had a certain sense of rebellion. The schoolas that way, the country wasxtremely polarized. Any of you who hav lived during that time hadhe good fortune of living through that extraordinary time in history where the vietnam war and the country was split very solid in many ways to whats going on right now. I have to say that this organization pus people uted to support the handicap, that was the First Organization that gave me a certain confidence. Aarticular woman i met who ironically she had been in my high school. She eventually became an author later in life but she has since passed away. Conn panzer reno who i dedicated bo on the fourth of july to, i remember leavinghe v. A. One day going to hofstra come have a date ill pick allowed me to go there so i could meet the deanho is going to allow me to go to the school. I concernedember his name, dean cedar. I went into the office and there was a girl in the office in a wheelchair, connie, with a severe disability that had occurred at birth. She said t me, you look familiar i think. Did you go to Massapequa High School . She said i use to wat you with your varsity sweater walking past me in the hallway. I said i remember you pick you were the only disabled person in a wheelchair and our entire school back then. She said yes, and she said that i started to ride her home because she needed a try phone or she said she did. But i would drive her home and she was not far fm my template i would drop her o. I got to know her peers. E thing led to another. She asked me to join the people he nudges up with the handicap for evething from curb cuts but you must know that Hofstra University was really at the forefront back then, it prided self in the fact that it was tailoring it was welcoming the disabled, welcoming physically handicapped if this was a big chae in the early 70s which eventually led to the americans with disability act. But sheas one who led me to this First Political organization of the cyclic challenge people, and then from ere she said w have got a wheelchair bketball team here at Hofstra University. She said, why dont you go down, i know you are a athlete in high school and you were a wrestler, a varsity wstler and you loved sports. Why dont you go down and see . I went down and they allowed me to be, the accepted me. My level of injury was pretty high. It still is. I no balance but it was thrilling. It really was. It w exciting to be with other young men like myself with very similar disabilities and t be competing, to be actually competing. There was a feeling o transcending, transcendence where, for a moment you forgot co for a moment you were not thinking of being paralyzed, f a moment you shouldnt the basket, you were trying to make the hook shot. It was eiting. It was great, wonderful. You felt great inside phically. Whatever depression you might have had for whatever doubtsr feelings, i i mean, i was dealg with a lot not just physical but because of what i had gone through during my second tour of duty, i was dealing wh a lot of psycholical trauma from what i had gone through durg that second tour. I was struggling with i i was struggling with wther i i had a right to stay alive or to gi up. I felt a tremendous amount of survors guilt and i wondered if i deserve to be alive because others have died and i had survived the people i had been responsible for who i had led into battle had been killed, and yet i was still alive. Even though i was paralyzed i felt a terrible guilt. I lived with that for a lg time. It was a long journey to move through that toe able to emerge from that and to beble to forgive myself and t give those who might forgive me forgive those who mightve hurt me and for those who sent me to work. I wanted to circle back on something y mentioned previously about whenou in the v. A. And you had in a sense the support of world war ii and korean war vetans. What was that experiee like for you, for the veterans who had gone through all of this . I am laying there in my bed, and you have these guys come in here with this cocky, very positive attitud you know, how you doing . Hows it going . Call as rodriguez, you know. One of the real inspirations, one of the founders, early founders of pva and a real character and a half and a real mover and shaker, had that thick w york bronx accentr whatever. I get doing . Whats going on . How can we help you . What can we do . And how long have you been in a wheelchair, i said to them, you know . I had a difficult day and wondered if i could make it to the neck. He said ive been in a eelchair 12 years, wounded in korea. These guys were a inspiration. They would come into our rooms. Ey were very important to us back then. Of course i was aoss from willie who had been paralyzed so severely that he had h was paralyzed from the neck down, if you can imagine. There was a hole in his throat with a little cork on it. I wrote about in born on the fourth of july. Once the day they would pl out the cork and put aube in and i would haveo listen to this, and all the rest of the guys in my room, three or four others, they would be suctioning the phlegm out of his lungs so we wouldnt get pneumonia. I heard thatvery single day. It was just just so movg, you know. I felt so lucky to be alive, and yet it was a guy right across from me who was justrying to live with a head, all he had was a head. How could these people not inspire you . And then people like the world war ii vets and korean vets coming into your room and telling you, you can do something with your life. Your life is not over. For a long time i remember a guy wouldome in. He wasecruiting paraplegics to rk for the bulovaatch company. He wanted me to make watches come to wor on watches. Thats where lot of the guys were sent, to the watchmaking company. I used to say to myself, thats not me. I always had big dreamss a kid. Maybe it was not a goo thing to dream so big, but always thought that myife could have much greater meaning and im not knocking people working in the watch company or for having a job, but i just wanted to do more. I wanted my life to really count, to really stand for something. Even before i was paralyzed i had been inspired by john f. Kennedy, i mean, i want to be like john f kennedy. I wanted to be like joh wayne. Maybe it was unhealthy. Maybe it was a lite maniacal but thats who i i was, and i s an amerin. Thats very much having grown up in an american boy in this country, having dreams be on all dreams a believing you could be anything you wante to be the matter whatappened to you. That sustained me,ven back then after i was paralyzed i said i want to do something grt with my life. I did say those things, you. I want to interrupt for a second about the Bulova Watch Company. That was a progr started for the world war ii vets by mr. Bulova. He built a watchmaking schl in queens. Wh youre going to john f. Kennedy airport you will go buy some of those buildings there and eventually they had a Basketball Team called the bulova watchmakers. They had a wheel chair team called i had no idea. When you think abo it, it was one of the First Corporate sponsors, you know, sports team. Not that far away there was another company team called the pan and jets. They were mostly post polio. Thats the part of the sto about bulova watmakers. As you mention, ron, that was part of rehabilitation was vocational. The v. A. Administrators figured lets get these guy in a job in a wheelchai they can do watchmakers repair or watchmaking. Anyway, it connected in that regard. And many of the veterans took that route. I think, i mean, i admire the head of Bulova Watch Company to dohat. I love the name of the team by the way. That name is really catchy. I lov that. I have to say this, i probly took the wrong turn. I w grumpy and i had an attitude. I dont know how my mom and dad ever put up with me. Listen, i used to go to arthurs ba and come home drunk. I came home drunk you might have seen the scene in born on the fourth of july, and i just, i was, you rember brando in the men. I was worse than brando in the men there i was terrible. I was just a juvenile delinquent at 21 come in a wheelchair. Thats a good point because i dont want to whitewash the exrience in the sense of all, they started playing wheelchr basketball and everything was okay. Th recovery took, as you mentioned, the psychological elements to it. Bothhysical and psychological. Can you imagine losing most of yourody, having to pull a trigger and kill people knowing you would kill people right in front of you, taking a life out ofhis world . Not to mention the fact that someone almost killed you and you somehow are dragged out of this place with only a a quartr of a body of left, your head, per part of your body. You have to make something out of this. You have to find a way to keep living. Before we go on i just want to throw out this to the audience. If you have questions for ron or myself, please feel free to type them in and we will come one of us will answer. Just want toake sure you all know that that functn is viable. Can i say one thing . Of course. I really want to recommend this book. This book is inspirin one of the thing david touches on, and he writes beautifully and passionately, he touches upon the fact that these men, these men who played in madison squa garden in that clip that you saw, the easement of world war ii, of okinawa, of the european theater who came bk with these devastang injuries, they were of the greatest generation as well. This book recognizes them, obably for the first time we begin to recognize the fac in a very honorable way that this group, these men,ere very much aart, a piece of that generation. By the way, my mother and father both served during world war ii. My mother joined the navy a weak after pearl harbor. My father who was in wisconsin at the time planting trees under roosevelts wpa program, he lived on a farm, my dad, a dairy farm. Right after december 7, 1941, my father immediately as so many other americans did, which is signed up. The monday aer that sunday, cember 7 my father was lined up to join the servi and to support his country. So i grew up with parents who had served during the second world war. And you of course were born obviously four july but you were born in 1946 right after just a little while ago. Yes. An it was quite a dferent reaction and wted to ask you about this. There was quite a different reaction forhen the world war ii veterans came home versus when vtnam veterans like yourself came home. I want to know, maybe you could address tha and talk to that point a little bit. In other words, what was the reaction that you fnd when you return home finally to long island and tried to start your life and you . Rolling up growing u in in the 50s with theohn wayne movies, mhine guns, the culture, i dont know if you remember there was a tv show on cbs called the b picture, and i grew up watching this about world war ii, was it was in the Pacific Theater orhether it was in europe. It was about our heroes coming back from world war ii. We were well aware of that, and thats what we thought america was like when we came back from vietm, as i said to you the other day, i remember silence, silence, nobody reall wanted to talk about it. They didnt want to talk about the war, and yet our les had been profoundly affected, traumatically by that experience. Ah, i remember feeling, you know, i know a lot of veterans said they felt they were mistreated and abused, a i justelt that, i just felt people shut off their feelings. They didnt want to tal about it. That w very difficult. That hurt. I was doing the same thing. I think i was trying to numb myself from what it happened, and somehow, this is overwhelming emotionally i was having anxiety attacks. I was sticking my finger down m throat every morning over the toilet bowl. I wast sick to my stomach. I was just doinghat to break the terror that i felt every morning waking up. I would wake upo a nightmare every morning. I would go to bed to a nightmare every night. I couldnt go to sleep at night because when i was wounded and i was shot on that day, i fought to stay awa. I was frightened to death as they pulled me off the field, as they went back across the river, as i went to the first aid station. U are correct in what you said earlierbout how quickly. I mean, i was immediately taken caref. Once i was pulled off the field, once my life was saved by that marine who saved my life, who by the way later thatay he was killed the day he saved my life. With across the riv and amphibious tractor. Imdiately of the side of the river where the battalion command center was i was being attended to by doctors. I was being cared for. I was put on helicopter immediately and then put on a plane down toa nang. Immediately i was in intensive care ward. Immediely i was receivingast rites of the Catholic Church a i was being operated on. This was very, very different d i was abl to survive and come home. Right. All of thatou went through in terms of sort of chain of command in terms of your treatment world war ii and korea mash units with it i quickly helicopter and s on. One of the veterans let me just say this. They saved our lives. I wouldnt be here. This was a savag wound, it really was, and i live with a savage wound every day but itll feelhat way. I feel like ive transcended this. I kw i am paralyzed. I know itsifficult. Its difficult eve day but yet i feel that i moved the audits i think its important that people realize that. Right, that there is life, there is a path forward. And you can move beyond, anybody listening to this or watching right now, no matter how tragic you may think your circumstances are, and no matter how, how you are struggling emotionally and you have doubts whether your life has meaning, never give up, never quit because you never know whats around the bend. You never know how your life can change. You never know whats waiting for you out there. I have ever imagined, david, when i was first wounded that some famous movie star would play my life story and millions of people would see that around the world . How could i ever have imagined that . That i would write a book and would end up on the front page of the New York Times bestseller review . My mother would say how did you ever do that . You were terrible in high school. Thats the trick obviously. One of the veterans i do write about from world war ii, he was paralyzed on okinawa. His name was jerry. I was able to meet with him and interview him and hang out with him before he passed away. Thankfully, he knew that this book was on its way before he passed away. His life intersected with yours in a particular place and i like to ask you about it because its not that well known. But jerry lived a very full life, was in a wheelchair 70 some odd years. Twenty years more than me. I can only hope i make it that far. Well, you are on your way for sure. He wanted to live life to the fullest and one of those jobs on his journey was to guadalajara, mexico, which became known as quadalajara because of the vast numbers of veterans, paralyzed veterans, u. S. Paralyzed veterans, who would go down to mexico to live because they could live cheap and they could have some fun. I understand you went down there and lived in quadalajara. I wanted to ask you what that experience was like. I wrote about in born on the fourth of july and its true. I went down there and back then in guadalajara there was a place called the village of the sun. That was the name of the compound. It was almost exclusively vietnam veterans, paralyzing quadriplegics. Many of you probably saw the scene in the movie. Thats quite a colorful scene of the village of the sun, you know . I wanted to get out of the states and i was, i found out about mexico, guadalajara, when i was on the paraplegic word one day. A guy in a wheelchair who i knew who i spent time with on the ward, he comes wheeling down the ward with the sombrero hat on his head and the beautiful young woman. He should have been going out with. She looked like come to look like she was 18, a young woman. He was probably, well, we were not that old. But anyway, he came up to me and he said, you know, i want you to meet my wife. He said, you know, i said how you doing . You got to go to mexico. You got to go to guadalajara. You got to go to the village of the sun come he said. It will change your life. Either that it will take your life, but it will change your life. So i went. I went to this place. I remember getting drunk one night, again. I mean, i was drinking a lot back then, at arthurs bar. I dont know how i got home. I dont know how i drool. I could hardly see. I was blind drunk and i drove back to my house in massapequa. I had pulled my wheelchair out, got in my wheelchair, wheeled up the ramp my father had built and put in front of our house. I remember saying, crawling into the bed, looking up to my bed bag with my catheter which ive used ever since, and saying to myself, what am i doing . Where is my life going . I made a decision i think the next day i went out and got the ticket to fly from Kennedy Airport to mexico city, direct flight to mexico city. I changed planes and i was headed to guadalajara. I was going to do with that guy told me. I was going to try to find my wife down in guadalajara. That was my main motivation. I couldnt find a girl. I could meet anybody. Maybe it was my own security, i dont know, and i had a lot of insecurity back then. I wanted to have what happened to that guy with the sombrero and his wife have been to me. I wanted love. I wanted to meet somebody. I flew down to watch horror, landed and i remember this guy who ran the village of the sun, i remember his name to this day. He carried to me into this truck, this old broken down truck and he drove me, my 720, 30 miles to this darkened countryside to the village of the sun. It was really quite an experience. The next morning i got up. I was in this little room, it was very humble, had a simple little bed. Nothing fancy at all. It made motel six look like a prehistoric cave, you know . It was really very basic. There was a main area where a long, long table and it was all the guys were lined up in the wheelchairs on both sides, and thats how come we had breakfast every morning. We had dinner every night at a a certain hour. We had our rooms. I happened to fall in with some of the wrong people as you might have seen in the movie, charlie. Charlie, you know, who was a wild man from chicago, charlie. Whats your name . Charlie. How long have you been near . 100 years or something he would say. I told him, everybody here meet ron kovic from massapequa, new york, you know. I fell in with his wild man really, and he took me under his wing, you know. I just was thrill to run with anybody back then. I wanted to live. I wanted to meet some girls. He took me into the city. He said i will take you to keep took me. He started take me to the different, different poor houses in the city so i could meet a wife. But so i ran with charlie and i dont know if you saw the movie, maybe we dont want this book store to go out of business if i tell the rest of the story. I had never had sex before, and this was my First Experience with sex. I was paralyzed before i ever made love to anybody for the first time. I was so young. I was trying to be a good catholic, a good catholic boy. I didnt want to burn in the fires of hell so i have not made love or had sex with anyone, even in high school. I was 21 and then all of a sudden, boom, i was paralyzed. Everything from mid chest done. I would never have sex again, at least that type of sex as it all know it and i would never be able to have children. But here i was winding up in a whore house in mexico trying to find love, you know. Here i was, he ended up on these mattresses in guadalajara in these whore houses with these women. I cant, i mean, they were particularly young, i dont how young they were but i didnt even know what to do. As you saw in that one scene in born on the fourth of july i started crying and say i cant move this, i cant move that, i cant do this. It was very difficult, painful, frustrating, traumatic for me at first. But sexuality, im thinking of all these guys from world war ii, something that is not often said. The loss of our sexuality, the loss of that aspect of our lives, the loss of the ability to make children, to have children, to have some type of normalcy in our life, that was something we were almost afraid to tell people about. Guadalajara provided that for me. It provided, you could call it a place of experimentation where i could at least experience women for the first time who were not going to laugh at me, not make fun of me because i couldnt move certain parts of my body feel them anymore. But they who would accept me and allow me to begin the journey toward discovering what sexuality really was, that there were other aspects to sexuality, other than that one particular approach that i had lost in the war. I know this is, maybe this bothers people to hear this, but it was not just that i couldnt move my legs and i would never stand or walk again but he was also that i could not experience this experience that everyone said was so wonderful and exciting. So it was the beginning of a journey for me to find meaning and purpose in my life. Guadalajara provided that, and charlie was dragging me from one whore house to the next if you want to know we were getting drunk. We were getting thrown out of places. This man was dangerous point we got thrown out of one place, and i thought, first of all, they threw him out the front door, out of his wheelchair onto the street. I wondered if we were going to survive this, and i dont know if you remember in born on the fourth of july the cab ride try to get back to the village of the center he starts fighting with the cab driver, tries to tell him hes cheating is, start calling all sorts of names. The cab driver ended up throwing us on the roadside. We were lucky enough to have gotten back to the village that night. We were abandoned in the middle of the desert. Guadalajara, suffice to say, is quite an experience for me. At the same time i was very happy to get back to the United States. Thank god i am lying back home to massapequa against. Thank you for that experience, ron. But just to add to that, certainly the world war ii veterans who i wrote about, many of them adopted children, and that was part of their journey to normalcy, to the newormal, as you would s. David, many of them, yeah, i have to say, i am one person, what i went through. I was witness to the fact that yes, many of them, many of them had very normal lives. Many of them raised children and had norl families. I dont know why it took me i have never been married and i never adopted any children, but i have been able to find love in a very special woman in my life right now. Yes,nd she helped us connect with this internet thing that is called zming and crowd casting and so we appreciate that. I couldnt do anything without her. We have a question fro your power, tom. Hi, tom he asks, he knows you played some wheelchairasketball. D you ever play wheelchair baseball . No, i never did. But in massapequa on toronto avenue which was the street right in fromhe house i grew up in, god, you know, we would play football and i was always obviously i was a quarterback and i love football in a wheelchair. And also when i was still a patient at the bronx v. A. , there was a workout mat and i used to challenge other paraplegics, because i was a varsity wrestler at the high school. I would challenge them to wrestle me. Everything was paralyzed from my mid chest down. All i had was my upper body and im still pretty strong. I would wrestle these guys. It was just amazing. Even after being paralyzed, even after being shot and wounded, there was that physicality, that desire to be physically involved in the sports that i love as a young man. And no, i never played wheelchair baseball, but i butd pick up a wiffleball bat. I used to have my brother i tried to do what i did when i was a kid. I try to play with the ball again in the backyard, and it was, i could still hit the ball with one hand with a wiffleball bat. But there was something missing, something that was hurting inside. It was not the same and it would never be the same again. But at the same time, i still, i continued and i know who taught is, i continued my love of sports. Tom is a great sportswriter. Absolutely. Its an honor to have his question. One of the things i thought was interesting when i started doing the research on this book, come from someone who really didnt know about the origin of wheelchair sports, was sort of why did they pick wheelchair basketball . Why was that the First Great Team sport that was played . You would think basketball values height, Kareem Abduljabbar or michael jordan. On the other hand, having said that, basketball the court is smooth. Its big enough to hold players and their wheelchairs. When you think about it, baseball is really, with a grass field anyway, baseball is very difficult. It would take about three hours to get to first base, even with a bunt. Theres another questions let me get to this one. Were getting towards the end of our time. And im not quite you mentioned, in the past there was a lot of silence around the topic. What shifted the volume of the conversation . Ron, what has shifted that there was so much silence around the topic . Around the war . Lets see whats the typical topics . About this topic, around paraplegia, disability. You talk about world war ii veterans. We know what specifically happened at Madison Square garden on that one particular night. Just a for this game with the w york knicks began, the public address system, somebody announced that there was going to be a special little, a preevent. All of a sudden these guys in wheelchairs got onto the court. Nobody had ever seen this before. They had thousands of people in the arena, and ive been there, Madison Square garden. Great sports arena. They came out and people, they didnt know what to make of them. They didnt know whether to feel sorry for them, so there was just silence. The game began and one of the guys in a wheelchair fell out of the chair, and there was this gas all throughout the garden gasp. What happened was are important at that moment. He turned around, grabbed his wheelchair and he muscled himself, pulled himself back in the chair, sat down and he started yelling at the referee, from what i read in your book, and started yelling and complaining. All of a sudden everybody started cheering at Madison Square garden. The feeling about who these men were, they were regular guys who had been wounded in the war, came back, still had a lot of fight in spirit and they were not done yet. So that was very important to me when i i read that in your boo. And just to add to that. I mean, when you think about it, before the war the president of the United States, Franklin Delano roosevelt, was a polio patient and used a wheelchair. He refused basically to ever allow himself to be photographed while he was sitting in his wheelchair. There was such a stigma about disability back then, and obviously there still is stigma about disability to this day. But i think what the paralyzed veterans, by being at Madison Square garden and the feeding by the way ablebodied teams that would bar wheelchairs for the occasion. And by forming the paralyzed pad veterans of america, a group that had become a very powerful lobby group in d. C. , that helped reduce the stigma. That helped bring about change in our society. Its a long process but one of the things i found fascinating is 15 at her from van nuys come to nobody would make their road trip back east they would always stop in washington, d. C. And they would Lobby Congress and senators and the white house about disability. They were, the word is pioneers. They were and they are the reason why i have a life that i have today, why i have the acceptance, and other is a good challenge for disabled people like myself have that acceptance and understanding that we are equal, equal to everyone else. We can rise to the high theres a saying i for for many years under dont particularly believe it. Its as roosevelt was elected president of the United States back then, but no person in a wheelchair today to be elected president of the United States. I dont agree with that. I dont believe it. I believe our potential as disabled people, you know, the potential of physically challenged people. We are all physically challenged. Its unlimited. Everybody has a physical challenge. Everybody deals with disability here the most traumatic disability of all is when you are dead and youre not here anymore. What more disabling and not being alive . Give me a break. So everybody goes through disability. Everybody deals with this disability. We are all dealing with the. We are not all admitting it to ourselves, but i think physically challenged people represent an inspiration. Thats why i think your book is so important. It honors the greatest generation. It honors an element of the greatest generation in an eloquent come in a beautifully put together way. I mean, i recommend that you read this book. This book, and david, i said to you yesterday let me say it again. You just be quiet. You wrote beautifully. It is beautifully written. As tom points out, Tammy Duckworth was senator from illinois, almost became the Vice President nominee for joe biden who certainly was considered for that. And she is in a wheelchair of course. I predict right now that something in the future of this rate country of ours that a man or a woman in a wheelchair will rise to the office of the presidency of the United States. I am saying that right now. We will hold you to that. I want to say at this point, if theres any other questions please let me know. Tom has another one. Ron, do you watch a lot of basketball . If so, who are your favorite players . You know, lebron james, the lakers of course. I must come i have to tell you, i know tom. Tom and i met in the village here at Redondo Beach several times, and hes just a wonderful writer. But anyway, as i told you many times, my great game is my migrates for his baseball and the dodgers. I love the dodgers. I grew up a yankee fan, this is a big deal. I kid from new york, this is almost sacrilegious, a kid from new york, at the california and becoming a dodger fan actually becoming in my neighborhood where i grew up you either hated the yankees and loved the dodgers or your loved the dodgers and come you know, you loved the yankees and hated the dodgers. Between the two blocks, there was a dodger fans and a yankee fans, and i was a yankee fan, Mickey Mantle, roger maris. I know the whole team. I know every position. And if youre a a fan, if you really love your sport you will know every one of them. You will know everything about them. You will leave that sport. Basketball, im very aware of football, very a wear i love to watch basketball. Very proud, very proud of the lakers this year. They are just zooming along and i hope they go all the way. Its baseball, baseball. Even in this limited season i continue to be an avid fan. I must say, tom, baseball is my greatest love of all. Well, on that note we will close, send it back to gilbert. Maybe we can get mookie betts to join us next time when have conversation. Mookie is incredible. Isnt he . Were going all the way. I agree. Thank you, thank you we appreciate it. Thank you so much for everything. Thank you, too, both of you. We really appreciate it. Its a great, great conversation and dont forget, you can buy davids book here, wheels of courage click on the button to the bottom and it will take you to the website. If you want to scroll up in the chat on the side at one point, tomorrow did mention the anniversary of one fourth july. And i linked that in there as well, just so you know. Because we enjoyed a lot of what he had to say tonight and you can get the full book there and we ask you in general, we know folks here, you made the effort to support independent book stores by tuning in tonight. You know, we continue to ask for your help during this tough time by buying books from us, if you want to do your christmas shopping. We hope you do your christmas shopping, its a one stop shop. I know its september and were talking about christmas, and feels weird, but its a good way to start the gift list and i think theres quite a few people out there who know others they might be able to get that for. Thank you very much. And im truly appreciative of your time and thanks so much. Thank you. All right. Thanks again, everybody, for tuning in and make sure to sign up for our newsletter and visit us at vromans bookstore. Com and have a wonderful life, everybody. Book on cspan2 has topnotch books and authors. Th weekend saturday at 9 p. M. Eastern former president barack obama reflects on his life and political career in his newly released memoir, a Promised Land and on after words, Sally Hubbard and her book, seven days corporations rule you life and how to take back control. And at 10 00, former appellate job and mason professor Douglas Ginsburg examines the constitution through the eyes of judges, legal historians. Watch this weekend and be sure to watch in depth live, sunday, december 6th at noon eastern with our guest, author and chair of africanamerican studies at princeton university. Eddie glaude, jr. Here is a look at publishing news, 71st annual book award, this years nonfiction prize went to the late journalist and daughter and principal researchers for tla biography of malcolm x. And for fiction, his novel interior chinatown. The National Book foundation which sponsors the annual award through arthur mosley. Britishs award, Douglas Stewart won for his novel. And Simon Schuster put up for sale by its Parent Company viacom, was sold to the largest publishers, random house. And print book sales were up 19 1 2 for the week ending november 14th. Adult nonfiction sales rose close to 12 and are up over 2 for the year. And the New York Times examined how long its taken president s to pen their memoirs. Former president obama who just released the first volume of his president ial memoir took the longest, three years and 10 months and president s carter and reagan and george w. Bush the quickest under two years. Book tv to bring you public shg news and bring your past programs at book tv. Org. Welcome, everybody to a house divided, from the book shop in chicago. Thank you very much for joining us today. I will be the administrator for todays program and i just have a little bit of information to cover before we start. First of all, the program, the book that we are discussing today on house divided is tecumseh and the prophet. The shawnee brotherho
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