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
No one wants to talk about the shock and pain of Lieutenant Carroll’s death. Back at camp, Simpson asks Perry to write a letter to Carroll’s family. Perry goes through Carroll’s personal things, looking at pictures and reading snippets of letters he hadn’t yet mailed to his wife. He learns that she is pregnant and that they planned to open a bookstore. It takes three tries to get the letter right. He explains the circumstances, says how sorry he feels, and, although he knows it’s small comfort, assures Mrs. Carroll that her husband died bravely and honorably, protecting men who loved and respected him. Perry gives it to Simpson to mail, then he thinks about Mama and Kenny receiving a similar letter in the event of his own death. He wants to get Carroll off his mind, but he knows he can’t. The gentle lieutenant will stay there, just like Jenkins.
Earlier, Peewee asked Perry to write a painful letter to Earlene; now Stewart asks him to write a difficult letter to Mrs. Carroll. It seems that, in Vietnam, Perry lives out part of his dream of being a writer. This points to his heroism and willingness to keep moving forward despite the obstacles and difficulties life presents. Perry doesn’t try to avoid the harsh realities of the war. Fictionalizing or moralizing about Carroll’s death would make it seem less significant and important than it was. By focusing on the truth and conveying it simply, his letter gains the power to comfort Mrs. Carroll through her loss. And his certainty that Carroll’s ghost will stick with him reminds readers of the intense trauma he and the rest of the soldiers suffer.
Themes
The next day passes in idleness, like so many others. Perry begins to realize that war entails hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of terror. Lobel approaches him in the hooch, confessing that he feels responsible for Carroll’s death. He says he was so scared that he didn’t even see the enemy. Peewee inserts himself into their conversation. He didn’t see anyone either, not until they were lying dead on the ground. He’s convinced that the Vietcong could “sneak they asses clear out the damn country” without anyone noticing. Perry confesses that he’s never seen anything to shoot at, either. He just fires and hopes for the best.
The fact that everyone seems to feel partly responsible for Carroll’s death—or at least that they might have been able to prevent it—points to the trauma that war causes the human psyche. Unable to say why they’re fighting, unsure whether their commanders have their best interests at heart, the solders can only rely on each other. Thus they take on responsibility for a death they could in no real way have prevented.
Themes
Sergeant Simpson fetches Perry for Captain Stewart. When Perry gets to the HQ tent, he finds Stewart, two colonels, and an interpreter interrogating a captured Vietnamese soldier. Perry listens closely as the fighter says the communists conscripted him; he doesn’t want to fight or die alone in the jungle. He says he belongs to the Second Division of the North Vietnamese Army. The idea that army units, not just guerrilla bands, are active so far south unsettles the officers. They decide to send the fighter to Chu Lai for further interrogation. Captain Stewart compliments Perry on the letter he wrote to Mrs. Carroll. He needs some administrative help around HQ and wants to know if Perry can type—but Perry says he can’t.
This encounter with the enemy unsettles the officers because it points to a mismatch between what they’re being told their adversaries are doing (preparing for peace talks) and what it seems like they are doing (massing troops for a new offensive). It unsettles Perry in part because it continues to humanize the Vietnamese people—like Perry, the VC conscript fears death. And he fights because others force him to (like drafted American soldiers), not necessarily because he believes in what the VC or NVA stand for.
Themes
Before Perry leaves HQ, an orderly casually comments that the NVA soldier probably thinks that the Americans plan to torture him the same way the VC torture their captives. How? Perry asks. The orderly says that they tie American soldiers to trees, disembowel them, then leave them to die. He heard that the marines found some of their own men in that state up near the demilitarized zone. The tortured marines begged their comrades to kill them. Perry passes on these stories to Peewee in the hooch. He joins the squad at volleyball, but his heart isn’t in it. The war has changed for him. Jenkins’ death was hard, but he didn’t know Jenkins. Carroll meant something to him. Part of Perry died with Carroll.
No sooner has the book humanized this one individual soldier than it provides readers with a harsh reminder of how both sides dehumanize their enemies to carry out this brutal war. The description of torture unsettles Perry and the rest of the men, especially since they feel so close to death after losing Lieutenant Carroll. Perry reflects on the way that the loss of a brother-in-arms goes beyond mere death and reminds a soldier of his own mortality in a truly terrifying way. Yet, the soldiers have no choice but to keep going.
Themes
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A new platoon leader, a man named Lieutenant Gearheart, arrives. He trained for reconnaissance, but the army sent him to the infantry because it’s short on officers. Brunner and Lobel get promoted from corporal to sergeant, and the rest of the squad get promoted from private to corporal. Everyone says the infantry is running short on soldiers, too. Perry desperately wants to talk about Carroll’s death, to figure out why it happened. But Peewee refuses to think about it too much.
The soldiers’ inability to form accurate expectations about their situation contributes to their trauma—deaths seem even more incongruous and cruel in light of everyone’s insistence that the war is almost over. And, despite Peewee’s efforts to avoid talking about Carroll, Perry realizes that ignoring deaths doesn’t stop them from having happened.
Themes
The next afternoon, the squad is assigned to escort a civilian pacification team that’s in the country trying to figure out exactly how to win over the support of the Vietnamese people. One of the civilians has his wife and kid with him, and Gearhart suspects that the team are CIA operatives using the woman and kid as cover. Perry doesn’t like the idea of civilians in a war zone.
While the foot soldiers find themselves destroying towns, the CIA launches a hearts-and-minds campaign. The mismatch between their strategies suggests that the Americans don’t truly know how to win this war. And not knowing increases the danger to everyone, soldiers and civilians, Americans and Vietnamese people alike.
Themes
They take trucks—the only thing worse than helicopters, in Perry’s opinion, because the Vietcong can shoot you right through the walls—to a hamlet, where the civilian team sets up a movie screen and shows Disney movies. During their visit, they hear VC artillery fire in the distance and even see an American plane go down.
Showing Disney movies not so subtly suggests the United States’ real goal in this conflict: exporting its own ethos and way of life to Vietnam. It light of the Cold War contest between democracy and communism, conflicts like Vietnam became proxy wars over which political system would dominate the world.
Themes
Mama sends a letter to Peewee, who refuses to tell Perry what it says. Perry worries that he upset Mama by telling her about Carroll’s death; he knows people back home don’t really want to hear about the war. He skips a meal and stays back in the hooch to read the letter secretly. In it, Mama tells Peewee that she doesn’t understand why Perry joined the army. If anything happens to Perry, she wants Peewee to make sure to remind him that she loves him. Perry doesn’t know why Mama wrote to Peewee, but he does know that there has always been conflict between them. She never really understood what her bright, intelligent son needed. At this moment, he just wants her love.
Like the roast beef, mashed potatoes, and carrots, the flow of letters between the soldiers and their loved ones at home contributes to a dissociative sense of time. Enough has passed since Carroll’s death for letters to come and go between Vietnam and the United States, yet Perry (and the book’s narration) continues in a timeless flow from one event to the next. Perry’s letters force him to reflect on how the war changes him forever, pointing to the trauma he experiences in Vietnam.
Themes
Late that night, the squad gathers to watch some TV. It’s unbearably hot; security is getting tighter, and they must cover the windows of the hooch to keep the light from the television from shining out. They watch a Christmas movie—Perry has forgotten that it’s almost Christmas—and then the news comes on, featuring the footage from the patrol they’d run with the news crew. No one recognizes themselves; Perry thinks he looks older and sloppier in the footage than he feels in life. They all try to avoid looking at Lieutenant Carroll, but when he turns back in the footage to check the platoon’s distances, it feels for a moment like he’s looking into the room where they sit.
The TV news footage further contributes to the sense that time is both moving and standing still. If it weren’t for Carroll’s death to make a marker, it doesn’t seem like Perry and the others would be able to tell how much time—if any—has passed since the news crew’s visit. When Perry realizes that he doesn’t recognize himself in the footage, this doesn’t just speak to physical changes; it also suggests that he's losing touch with the reasons he thought he was fighting this war in the first place.
Themes
