Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Fallen Angels, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
War, Trauma, and Dehumanization
Perseverance and Heroism
Race, Identity, and Belonging
Reality and Fiction
Faith and Hope
Summary
Analysis
As a guy named Gates wanders around the Anchorage Air Force base bragging that his alarming reputation scared off any “Congs” that might otherwise have been lying in wait there, Judy Duncan and Richie Perry make small talk. He’s from New York and she’s from outside of Dallas, Texas. They met on one leg of their journey from the United States to combat duty in the Vietnam War.
Gates’s bravado shows the confidence he feels about the war, but he will soon learn that it’s much more complicated and painful than he could have imagined. He gleefully promises to deter any “Congs”—using a racialized slur for the communist forces the Americans oppose in the war. Slurs like this imply that the world can easily be divided into friends and enemies, and they deny basic human dignity to those enemies, encouraging violence against them.
Themes
When they climb back onto the plane, Judy goes to sit with the other nurses who joined at Anchorage. Perry feels too nervous to eat the dinner served shortly after the plane takes off. He wasn’t even supposed to be going to Vietnam; the Army transferred him from his first unit when it was scheduled to deploy there because he has a bad knee. But then his old unit went to Germany, and his new unit was assigned to Vietnam. Perry remembers his captain assuring him that his medical profile will be processed long before he sees any combat. This, and the fact that he heard the fighting was almost over anyway, kept him from being too nervous about going to Vietnam.
Perry’s lost appetite suggests that he feels more nervous than he wants readers—or even himself—to know. He acts out a confidence he doesn’t really feel. Still, he tries to face what lies ahead of him with all the bravery he can muster, clinging to assurances that the war is winding down and that his injury will keep him from the front lines. But the fact the army gave him orders for Vietnam at all, if he couldn’t fight, suggests a certain desperate need for increasing numbers of fresh soldiers.
Themes
The plane stops to refuel in Osaka, Japan. It lands at the commercial airport, where confused cafeteria employees refuse to honor the meal tickets handed out by a lieutenant. Perry and the rest have to buy their own dinners. Some sleep on benches at the airport, and Perry buys a few small souvenirs to send home to Mama and his younger brother Kenny. At breakfast in the morning, Judy tells Perry that when she was little, she wanted to grow up to be a garbageman. Perry wanted to work at a drugstore so he could wear the white coat with the buttons on the shoulder.
The Osaka airport cafeteria gives Perry and Judy a glimpse of the chaos and dysfunction that await them in Vietnam, where the American military has less control of the situation than they want people to think. And this lack of control leaves the soldiers vulnerable and exposed. The conversation between Perry and Judy hints that their military service interrupts rather than continues their lives, which have strayed far from their childhood dreams.
Themes
On the final leg of the trip, conversations get quieter. Shortly before they land, Judy wishes Perry good luck. And then Perry finds himself standing in hot, bright, muggy Vietnam. Judy and the rest of the medical personnel hustle onto buses as the rest of the soldiers stand around, waiting, for nearly two hours. It doesn’t look that different from Fort Devens, where Perry was previously stationed, except more of the guys carry weapons here than they do stateside. And Vietnamese soldiers, who are noticeably shorter than their counterparts, mix with the Americans. Perry hears the rumbling of artillery fire in the distance and feels queasy. He’s assigned to the 22nd Replacement Company, along with Gates.
The chaos and confusion at the landing base point, yet again, to a much more active conflict than stateside rumors would suggest. The number of soldiers and level of activity says that the war isn’t winding down but rather ramping up. And the fact that Perry finds himself assigned not just to active combat duty but to a “replacement” unit suggests that the Americans have experienced casualties at a higher rate than they have been letting on back home.
Themes
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In the hooch (slang for barracks), Perry asks Gates—who goes by Peewee—if he found any of the “Congs” he was looking for earlier. Peewee points to the Vietnamese woman sweeping the floor. Perry says the Army would hardly invite its enemies to clean its bases, but Peewee warns him that sometimes the “dude that [does] the figuring [sometimes figures] wrong.” No one should make assumptions. A giant soldier, who’s just finished ranger training, tries to bully Peewee into silence, but Peewee kicks him in the crotch, punches him while he’s down, and promises to cut the ranger’s throat in his sleep if he ever attacks. The ranger doesn’t know how to respond. Perry writes about Peewee in his letter home.
Peewee’s nickname refers to his small size. But small doesn’t mean non-threatening; just as the giant ranger (and Perry) learn that it’s a mistake to underestimate Peewee, the book hints that the Americans are unwise to underestimate their Northern Vietnamese and Vietcong adversaries. And Peewee’s observation that sometimes those who make the plans—in this case military leadership—miscalculate adds weight to this warning.
Themes
