Fallen Angels (1988) (edit title/settings)

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Characters/People edit see section history

• Richie Perry: Perry is a 17 year old kid. He doesn't think he has any option but to join the war. While in Vietnam we learn a lot about Richie -- mainly that he is afraid of death.
• Richie's Mom: Richie's mom is kind of a drunk, however she is the person that really keeps Richie sane with her some what constant letters to him.
• Kenny: Kenny is Richie's younger brother. All we really know about Kenny is that he is a fun loving little kid and Richie's best friend. Richie is Kenny's hero and role model. Kenny is also the person that keeps Richie and his mom together.
• Peewee Gates: Richie's best friend in Vietnam, however they are nothing a like while Richie is quiet. Peewee is loud and a trouble maker. Peewee at some times can be cocky and doesn't take nothin from nobody.
• Brew: Brew is a very stern person he talks with authority and plans to become a priset after the war is over.
• Captain Stewart: the commander of Richie's squad. All he really cares about is his kill count because he wants to become a major.
• Lobel: Jewish and possibly homosexual. Deals with war through his devotion to movies.Says that he's dated more starlets than Richard could imagine.
• Monate: Italian and possibly one of the braver men of the squad.
• Sergeant Simpson: The leader of Richie’s squad. When Richie first arrives in Vietnam, Sergeant Simpson is near the end of his tour of duty.
• Lieutenant Carroll: The leader of Richie’s platoon. A smart and sympathetic leader; well-liked by the men under his command.
• Corporal Brunner: An ambitious (and bully) soldier on Richie’s squad.
• Judy Duncan: An army nurse. Richard finds out that Judy died during a bombing run.
• Johnson: The only member of Perry's squad to use an M-60 (the rest use an M-16). Proves himself to be of leadership quality.
• JAMEL: Richie Perry, Lobel, Johnson, Brunner, and Peewee are all in Vietnam. They came there for different reasons, but now they share a single dream -- getting out alive.
• Lieutenant Gearheart: The leader of Richie's squad after Lieutenant Carrol dies.
• Seargent Donogan: Comes into Richie's squad while Richie is in the hospital and after Seargent Simpson leaves Vietnam. He doesn't get along with Johnson and thinks Monaco is the same as Peewee, Richie, and Johnson.
• An Linh: A Vietnamese girl Richie and Lobel meet on their first pasification mission. They give her the name Arielle. When the village is attacked by the NV, Richie finds An Linh and gives her an American dollar

Quotes edit see section history

• “It's ok to feel bad about what's going on over here, man. It's really ok.”

  Peewee

• “They ain't taking me alive.”

  Peewee

• “I knew Mama loved me, but I also knew when I got back, she would expect me to be the same person, but it could never happen. She hadn’t been to Nam. She hadn’t given her poncho to anybody to wrap a body in, or stepped over a dying kid.”

  Richie

• “We spent another day lying around. It seemed to be what the war was about. Hours of boredom, seconds of terror.”

  This statement, from Chapter 11, sums up the experience of life in Vietnam for many of the young men fighting there

• “We were supposed to smile a lot and treat the people with dignity. They were supposed to think we were the good guys. That bothered me a little. I didn’t like having to convince anybody that I was the good guy. . . . We, the Americans, were the good guys.”

  Richie

• ““My father used to call all soldiers angel warriors,” he said. “Because usually they get boys to fight wars. Most of you aren’t old enough to vote yet.””

  Lieutenant Carroll

• “My plans, maybe just my dreams really, had been to go to college, and to write. . . . All the other guys in the neighborhood thought I was going to college. I wasn’t, and the army was the place I was going to get away from all the questions.”

  Richie

• “"Lord, let us feel pity for Private Jenkins, and sorrow for ourselves, and all the angel warriors that fall. Let us fear death, but let it not live within us. Protect us, O Lord, and be merciful unto us. Amen."”

  Lieutenant Carroll

• “If God gets even half the promises we've been laying down, the USA is going to be holier than the Vatican.”

• “Sometimes standing alone seemed to be the hardest thing in the world to do, even when being in the crowd meant you could be killed.”

  Perry

Organizations edit see section history

• The United States Army: The United State's basic military defense.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• War Movies: War movies are full of worn-out notions about war that are common in American popular culture. As such, they are both a primary source and a symbol of the mythology of warfare that pervades civilian life, which includes clichés such as the tragic death of the baby-faced virgin soldier or the consistently positive portrait of the black soldier. These films reveal the American tendency to beautify and romanticize real wartime tragedies, attaching false meaning to deaths that are often senseless, random, and brutal. Such movies also tend to force the two sides of the conflict into clear divisions—black and white, good and evil, right and wrong—even though the nature of war is often highly ambiguous, with the seemingly just or moral cause not always emerging as the victorious one. Lobel’s obsession with movies suggests that he seeks to glorify war. He does not really understand war’s true nature, and he perhaps does not even wish to understand it. Rather, he prefers to believe in a romanticized notion of war in which soldiers are heroic and enjoy the deep bonds of camaraderie with their fellow men in life and are afforded dignity in death.
• The Lost Dog Tags: In the midst of one terrible battle, when time is short and the men must evacuate immediately, they are forced to burn the bodies of the victims. In the tumult to escape, they lose the dog tags—military identification tags—of these dead soldiers and are left with no physical evidence of these men’s lives and deaths. The loss of the dog tags is highly symbolic, emphasizing the complete anonymity and obscurity of a soldier’s death. It illustrates the tragedy of any lost soldier; though the myths may claim that each soldier dies with dignity and meaning, in reality some soldiers die in obscurity, with no reason for their deaths aside from pure chance. Richie comes to understand that each soldier’s death swallows up his previous victories and sacrifices, which are anonymous and quickly forgotten.
• Richie’s Letters Home: The letters Richie writes home symbolize his changing attitude toward the myths of war. At first, he fully believes in these myths and has little trouble writing home, sending carefree and optimistic messages about the coming truce and the souvenirs he plans to bring home with him. Once in Vietnam, as the illusions begin to fade, Richie suddenly finds writing to be a painful exercise. Confused by the sharp difference between the myth and reality of war, he finds himself at a loss for words. His letters strike him as dishonest, since they avoid the difficult issues and take on false and often humorous tones. Richie struggles to reconcile his earlier beliefs with his current experiences and finds himself unable to communicate his thoughts and feelings. As his confusion disperses and he forces himself to see war in all its stark, brutal reality, he is finally able to write a truthful and frank letter. Richie’s letters once again become an honest representation of his thoughts and feelings, indicating that he has sorted out the chaos, gained a clear perspective, and is ready to seek out truths about war and himself.
• Race: The 1960s were a time of great racial tension in the United States. The African-American civil-rights movement was gaining momentum, and anxieties were growing on all sides. This tension immediately finds its way into the bunker of Richie’s squad. The American soldiers frequently trade racial slurs, both about the black soldiers in their midst and about the Vietnamese, who are of a different race than most of the American soldiers. Both manifestations of racism lead to physical violence, with some of the soldiers fighting one another instead of the Vietcong. Yet, as the squad members bond, the prejudices begin to evaporate. Living and fighting very closely, they begin to depend on one another and become able to look past superficial differences. The soldiers come to appreciate one another for their fundamental qualities, and they learn to value each other’s humanity and fear for each other’s lives. By the time the squad is faced with Sergeant Dongan—a racist who endangers black soldiers because he considers their lives less important—it has come so far that most of the white members are outraged by Dongan’s unfair treatment and even offer to risk their own positions by taking a stand against him.
• Heroism: Though the soldiers often talk about heroism, it is almost always part of an effort to denigrate or deflate the concept. Peewee calls heroism stupid and Richie calls it empty. They express the sentiment that a soldier should not try to be heroic and never needlessly risk his life. Nonetheless, the soldiers clearly respect heroism when they see it. When Lieutenant Carroll risks his own life to save a few of his men, the soldiers beneath him revere him more than ever. They admire his heroism but avoid referring to it in noble-sounding terms, saying, “When the chips were down, he put his ass on the line for the guys.”At the same time that they belittle overblown concepts of heroism, the members of the squad also display heroism. Richie repeatedly stresses that he is not a hero. Yet, when given the opportunity to save himself by bowing out of combat duty, he refuses the offer, knowing that his absence would leave his squad short a man, putting them in more danger. Peewee warns Richie not to be “no fucking hero,” but when Richie asks Peewee what he would do in the same situation, Peewee admits that he would do the same. Though the squad members have lost any illusion that they are fighting for patriotism or freedom or any other high ideals, they still fight for one another. In putting each other’s interests ahead of or on equal ground with their own, they are heroic, despite their protests.
• The Unromantic Reality of War: Like all the other soldiers in Fallen Angels, Richie joins the army with illusions about what war is like. Like many American civilians, he has learned about war from movies and stories that portray battle as heroic and glorious, the army as efficient and organized, and warfare as a rational effort that depends on skill. What the soldiers actually find in Vietnam bears almost no resemblance to such a mythologized and romanticized version of war. The army is highly inefficient and fallible. Most of the officers are far from heroic, looking out only for their own lives and careers rather than the lives of their soldiers. In the heat of battle, the soldiers think only about self-preservation and ways they can personally survive the onslaught of chaos and violence. Paralyzed by fear, they act blindly and thoughtlessly, often inadvertently killing their allies in the process. The battles and military strategies of the war are disorganized and chaotic, and officers often accidentally reveal their position to the enemy.
• The Loss of Innocence: The title of the novel Fallen Angels immediately emphasizes the theme of youth and innocence. As Lieutenant Carroll explains in Chapter 4, all soldiers are “angel warriors,” because the soldiers are still young boys and still as innocent as angels. In calling the novel Fallen Angels, Myers implies that the soldiers’ youth and innocence are more important than any of their other aspects, such as their religion, ethnicity, class, or race. The novel is first and foremost a tale of the lost innocence of a squad of soldiers in the Vietnam War. Richie is only seventeen when he enters Vietnam, and Peewee and the other members of the squad are also teenagers—Peewee is unable even to grow a mustache. His three life goals, immaturely, are to drink wine from a corked bottle, to smoke a cigar, and to make love to a foreign woman. Richie and Lobel are both virgins, and they fantasize endlessly about their first sexual experiences.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Walter Dean Myers (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Coretta Scott King Book Award (1989: Author, Winner)

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Teens › Authors, A-Z › ( M ) › Myers, Walter Dean
• Books › Teens › Literature & Fiction › Adventure & Thrillers
• Books › Teens › History & Historical Fiction › Historical Fiction

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