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
Perry thinks about what happened. For the first time, the squad had been “in the middle of it,” and they had almost been overrun. Turner died. The war isn’t far off anymore, it’s right here.
Perry can’t fantasize his way out of war; he can no longer cling to the hope and rumor of a speedy resolution.
Themes
Monaco gets a letter from his girlfriend, who wants him to consider getting married when he gets back. The guys in the squad take a vote on it, five to two in favor. Walowick refuses to vote, saying that marriage is a sacred decision. Johnson thinks Monaco should have a job before he marries anyone, and Lobel says he should wait until he gets home to see if he still loves the girl. Their experiences are changing them, and he’s sure that the people they’ve left behind are changing, too. Monaco promises to invite everyone to the wedding.
When the squad votes on Monaco’s marriage proposal, it suggests that their need to trust each other has muddled the lines that once divided them. In a way, they feel like they live or die together, so it seems natural to start making important life decisions together, too. It gives them hope to think of the happy experiences that may lie for them on the far side of the war. But, as Lobel says (and Perry also realizes), they won’t return home the same people they were when they left. The brutal and dehumanizing war leaves an indelible mark on each soldier.
Themes
Jamal fetches Perry for Captain Stewart, who wants to know if Lieutenant Gearhart messed up and how many enemies the squad killed—he hopes it’s at least 30. Then, Stewart asks Perry to rewrite the letter Gearheart attempted for Nate Turner’s family. Gearhart’s version was too full of his own pain; Perry’s version talks about Turner’s bravery and self-sacrifice. Gearhart reads Perry’s version and insists that he (Gearhart) shouldn’t be let off the hook, but Perry points out that Turner’s family doesn’t need to deal with Gearhart’s pain in addition to their own. After a long look at Perry, Gearhart confesses that he never thought too much about Black people before being in the army. Well, Perry answers, we’re here. He wants to be angry at Gearhart, but when he considers his feelings, he realizes he’s just relieved that Turner died and not him.
One source of the soldiers’ trauma lies in their sense that their lives don’t matter enough to their commanders. Stewart’s concern with body counts and his reputation confirms this. In a more subtle way, so does Gearhart’s letter, which focused exclusively on his feelings at the expense of Turner’s family’s feelings. The fact that officers keep asking Perry to write these letters points to his skills as a writer and suggests that he might be able to achieve his dream of becoming a writer after all. But Gearhart expresses his appreciation, in part, in ways that underline the systemic racism and discrimination that has limited Perry’s options and will likely continue to do so.
Themes
A major visits the camp and briefs the soldiers on the evolving situation. The army had thought that Northern Vietnamese forces were stalling the peace talks while they established a position more favorable to themselves, but they worry that Vietcong guerrillas are terrorizing the civilian population to turn them against the Americans. The major warns that the Americans and their allies could win the physical war but lose the psychological one. Intelligence reports indicate that the VC plan to hit the village assigned to Perry’s squad at 6:00 p.m. the next day. Attacking in broad daylight demonstrates the VC’s rising confidence.
In their attempts to wrest the loyalty of the Vietnamese people away from their adversaries, the American forces begin to treat villagers more like trophies to be won (or dangerous vermin to be exterminated) than people. Both sides dehumanize this population, turning them into pawns. Although the major criticizes the Vietcong for their violence, readers should remember Peewee’s earlier sarcastic comment about pacifying the civilians to death; the Americans are guilty of the same dehumanizing violence as their adversaries.
Themes
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Captain Stewart assigns Alpha Company to hold the village after the 173rd Airborne division secures it. Simpson, who has less than two weeks left in Vietnam, likes the sound of that, since it seems safer than patrols. But while they’re flying toward the village in the helicopter, word comes through to Lieutenant Gearhart that the 173rd couldn’t make it. It’s up to Alpha Company to secure and hold the village all by itself. As he hits the ground, Perry sees that some of the huts are already on fire. The Vietcong have already struck.
Once again, the situation on the ground shifts, leaving the foot soldiers exposed to more danger than they’re expecting to face. This shows both that the war remains more fluid (and more active) than their higher-ups are letting on, and it reminds them (and readers) that their individual lives don’t matter except insofar as they contribute to meeting the army’s strategic objectives.
Themes
Perry thinks that the village looks like the practice village constructed at Fort Devens. But there’s panic in the air as Captain Stewart reminds the soldiers not to shoot civilians. When Perry tries to help an old woman covered in blood from deep cuts on her face, the realness of this village, the smell of blood, vomit, urine, and fire in the air, overwhelm him. He wants to blast the nightmare into oblivion with his rifle. He sees a similar look of pain and confusion on Monaco’s face but turns away—there’s no time to try to comfort each other here. He hears a burst of fire from behind him and turns to find Walowick shooting an empty steel drum. Simpson runs up and stops him. The idea that rock steady Walowick could freak out like that scares Perry.
Perry remembers the practice villages from his basic training, but he can’t square that sanitized fiction—where there were no real enemies, and no one really died—with the terror unfolding in front of him. This is real war, not a training exercise or a movie. Perry’s new desire to destroy things arises out of this disconnect between fantasy he’s been sold about war and its harsh reality, more than it comes from any patriotic feeling.
Themes
Slowly, the soldiers begin to calm down. They start putting out fires and calling medevacs for the wounded. But it’s impossible to relax fully as they step around all the dead bodies. Perry can’t get the image of two old men, embracing each other in death, out of his mind. He realizes that he and the rest can barely maintain their self-control, that it would be as easy to open fire and kill everyone as to provide first aid, as easy to burn the village down as to extinguish the fires. Luckily, Simpson keeps them calm and helps them remember their humanity despite the horror around them. Peewee observes that the village faces an impossible choice, just like the residents of the Chicago projects, who face violence and abuse from both the police and the gangs.
As the soldiers realize they’re not coming under direct fire, they start to relax. But months in the country have taught them that Vietcong fighters can (and do!) hide anywhere and attack without warning. Perry can barely hold himself together under the strain of this relentless vigilance. Simpson shows himself to be an effective leader because he helps them focus on their humanity and the humanity of the dead and injured Vietnamese villagers. Peewee recognizes it too, when he notes how helplessly these people are caught between warring sides.
Themes
Stewart orders the soldiers to triage the wounded villagers and to make a note of any apparent Vietcong fighters that he can add to his body count. Perry goes looking for An Linh, whom he finds alive. But he can’t find her mother, and her grandmother seems to be in shock. He gives the little girl the only thing he has on him, an American dollar. In the next hut, he finds two bowls still sitting on the table ready for dinner. He sees some pictures on a wicker chest, and while he’s looking at them, he hears the click of a gun. He turns to see a “small brown man” pumping the bolt of rifle aimed directly at his chest. When it refuses to fire, the man swings it at Perry’s head. Perry opens fire, emptying the entire clip into the man’s face at point blank range.
Perry feels—but cannot meaningfully act on—empathy for An Linh; part of his trauma arises from this sense of helplessness. He doesn’t feel like a hero because he cannot do anything to help. But it only takes a fraction of a second—and the realization that his own life is in danger—for him to lose any empathy towards the villagers and turn into the killing machine the army trained him to be. Importantly, Perry’s first kill happens at close range, where he cannot escape or ignore the violence or gore of it. This emphasizes how war compromises a soldier’s values and thus their sense of self.
Themes
Simpson bursts into the hut. Perry finally lowers his rifle and looks at the Vietnamese man, lying on the ground with an “angry mass of red flesh” where his face should be. He turns away and vomits. Simpson leaves Perry with Peewee to continue their survey of the huts. In the next one, they see a potential hiding spot under a heavy mat. Peewee shoots at it twice, then they pull it back to find a wounded Vietcong fighter. Captain Stewart, attracted by the gunshots, enters the hut and finishes the man off. Then, unwilling to continue the risky hut-to-hut search, he calls in evacuation choppers and sets the rest of the village on fire.
Perry reacted to his adversary in the hut not as a human being but as a threat, and the destruction of the man’s face underlines this erasure of his humanity. This is the first time Perry has done his work as a soldier right, but he feels terrified and angry instead of proud and heroic. This inability to justify his actions will contribute to his trauma. Earlier, when the major briefed the soldiers, he worried about how the Vietcong violence would turn the Vietnamese civilians against the US and its interests. But now, the American soldiers show themselves to be capable of just as much violence as the Vietcong. No one in this war can claim the moral high ground.
Themes
Perry watches the village burn and thinks about the man he killed. He thinks about the Vietcong fighter he and Peewee found, and about how terrifying it must have been to crouch there, hoping to escape notice. As the choppers evacuate the wounded first, enemy mortar fire creeps closer and closer. Perry watches the choppers coming in through whizzing artillery and antiaircraft fire, swooping in like heroic birds to gather the fallen angels from the earth.
As he gets a little bit of emotional distance from his encounter with the Vietcong fighter, Perry instinctively humanizes his adversaries once more, wondering about their lives and feelings. What makes him a good person makes him a bad soldier. The disconnect between instinctive human empathy and the soulless killing he’s expected to do generates most of his trauma by forcing him to act contrary to his nature and his moral consciousness.
Themes
When they get back to camp, the squad members all have a hard time coming down from the excitement. Peewee’s legs give out under him as he jumps down from the chopper. Gearhart tries—and fails—to make small talk; Perry finds relief in the fact that Gearhart seems as shaken as the rest of them. No one gets used to it. Brew’s hands shake uncontrollably. No one can talk above a whisper.
The soldiers’ emotional reactions to their mission show why it’s so hard to be a soldier in Vietnam, since a distant, amorphous “they” continually asks them to do what their human nature refuses. And their series of near misses keeps them all on constant, exhausting alert, contributing to their traumatization.
Themes
Later, in the recreation hooch, the soldiers watch the news. It talks about President Johnson’s attempts to help the urban poor and the impending Super Bowl. It doesn’t seem real that anybody could care about such unimportant things in light of “all this shit.” Perry can’t sleep. He can’t forget how quietly the Vietcong fighter snuck up on him in the hut, how he escaped death only because the man’s gun malfunctioned. As he tells Peewee all this, he begins to weep. Peewee climbs into Perry’s bunk and holds him until they both fall asleep.
The book paints a sharp contrast between the harsh, fatal realities of the mission the squad just faced and the news, which focuses on things that are important only to people back home who don’t fully understand what’s happening in Vietnam. And he shows more trauma symptoms here, from his flashback to the hut to his uncontrollable weeping. In the face of his trauma, only the deep and abiding friendship he’s developing with Peewee offers him comfort.
Themes
Word comes down that Alpha Company is being sent north to Tam Ky to advise ARVN troops. Lobel figures that the Northern Vietnamese forces will prefer to attack the dinky ARVN base at Tam Ky rather than the well-defended marine base at Chu Lai. Simpson, who has just eight days left in Vietnam, doesn’t want to hear Lobel’s theories. Jamal joins the squad. Brunner wants to know if Jamal is “man enough,” and Jamal replies that he isn’t, but they’re sending him anyway. While they wait to leave, Brunner gets a letter from his wife in Seattle, describing how she got burned when the coffee urn at her workplace blew up. Perry gets a letter from Mama. He clings to his people back in the World desperately, needing them to stay the same so that when—if—he gets home, they can help him find the man he’s supposed to be.
Brunner’s question if Jamal is “man enough” echoes his (and others’) allegations about Lobel’s sexuality. But it also points towards the impersonality of military leadership and how leadership asks too much of the soldiers under their command. That is, it doesn’t matter if Jamal can handle combat. They’re too short-staffed to spare him any longer. The soldiers become depersonalized, dehumanized chess pieces being moved by unseen commanders, even though they are all individual human beings with their own characters, abilities, hopes, and dreams. Perry finds himself turning to his family more and more to remind himself that he’s a person, not just a faceless soldier.
Themes
Perry has ongoing nightmares about being in the village hut. In his dream, he cannot move while the Vietcong fighter calmly fixes his rifle. In his dream, he stands motionless and weeping while the VC fighter smiles confidently. In his dream, he knows he will inevitably die. Every time he falls asleep, he has the same dream. In the morning, Peewee has a puffy, swollen face, though he refuses to tell Gearhart what happened, insisting only that he’s fit to travel with the squad to the new base. Later, he admits to Simpson and the guys that he used some of the hair salve on his lip in an attempt to grow a moustache.
Perry’s trauma symptoms intensify and begin to include nightmares, pointing to the intense trauma he (and the rest of the soldiers) suffers. Peewee’s attempt to grow a moustache backfires in a hilarious way, but this also pointedly reminds readers of one of the essential tragedies of the Vietnam War. Most of the soldiers who fought and died there were young, still boys who never got to experience milestones like having facial hair.
Themes
