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
The plane flies north over the ocean to avoid anti-aircraft fire. The officers at Chu Lai wear crisp, ironed uniforms and have an urgent attitude; Jenkins secretly imitates them, to Perry’s and Peewee’s glee. As soon as their truck leaves the outer checkpoint, it picks up speed and bounces crazily over rutted roads to company HQ. The officers here look sweaty and grungy, like they’ve put in a “damn hard day’s work.” As Perry, Peewee, and Jenkins wait for a helicopter to take them to Alpha Company’s camp, they meet a beefy Black soldier named Johnson.
As Perry, Peewee, and Jenkins move closer to the front lines, the army officers they encounter become increasingly grungy and less polished, suggesting that they’re headed into a very active war zone indeed, contrary to both gossip and the orientation lectures they received. Things may not be as easy or as clean as the soldiers and the American public back home have been led to believe.
Themes
While waiting to leave for “the Deep Boonies” (what the soldiers call the Vietnamese countryside near the front lines), Perry tries to ask the unit captain about his medical profile. The captain doesn’t know about it and doesn’t seem to care. Perry, Peewee, and Jenkins find a mess hall. Jenkins can’t eat. He tells the others that his father, a colonel, wanted him to volunteer for the army, serve his time in Vietnam, then go home for Officers Candidate School. Soon Johnson, who’s also assigned to Alpha Company and is waiting for the chopper, joins them. He and Peewee immediately begin to vie for dominance. Jenkins confesses his fear of dying in Vietnam to Perry, who says his stateside officers assured him that most guys in Vietnam won’t even fire their rifles. Eventually the helicopter arrives, but the pilot gets too drunk to fly and they must wait until morning.
The draft—legally forcing young men to join the army whether they wanted to or not—forms an outsized role in modern images of the Vietnam War. Yet, no more than 30% of Vietnam War-era soldiers were drafted. Fallen Angels shows many reasons for soldiers’ presence, from the draft to Perry’s and Peewee’s attempts to escape poverty and discrimination, to complex family dramas like Jenkins’s. These varied stories humanize the soldiers and remind readers that everyone has a backstory and deserves to have their human dignity honored. But war, as Perry will discover, necessitates ignoring or downplaying people’s humanity enough to turn soldiers into killers.
Themes
In the middle of the night, the sound of artillery wakes Perry. Outside the hooch, he sees flares in the distance, breaking like beautiful and brilliant flowers against the dark night sky. In the morning, Perry, Peewee, Jenkins, and Johnson follow the now sober pilot to the chopper. It’s Perry’s first helicopter ride; because his medical profile exempts him from marching, prolonged field duty, and combat, he didn’t get helicopter training stateside. He remembers watching the doctor at Fort Devens sign it. He dislikes the exposed sensation, but he hates the noise even more. Johnson sits expressionless, while Peewee watches the passing scenery. Jenkins squeezes his eyes shut and holds the seat so tightly his knuckles turn white.
The artillery fire again points towards active fighting, contrary to the gossip of peace talks. At a distance, it looks much prettier than it does close up—in much the same way that gossip and reports about the war present an incorrectly rosy assessment. In the helicopter, Perry keeps his terror contained despite his growing fears, unlike Jenkins. In this way Perry epitomizes quiet heroism: he keeps going even in the face of danger and adversity. And he doesn’t complain about what life hands him, even when it’s unfair—like his assignment to a combat unit despite his medical profile.
Themes
When they land, the captain of Alpha Company (later identified as Stewart) talks to Perry about his medical profile, which still hasn’t arrived. Anyway, he tells Perry, the war is almost over. Before finding their bunks Perry, Peewee, and Jenkins pick up their assigned M-16 rifles; Johnson gets an M-60 because he has machine gun training. The giant gun suits the giant man. Peewee asks for a pistol, too. The platoon leader, a soft-voiced lieutenant named Carroll, stops by the hooch to welcome the boys. He tells them to focus on their surroundings, not the gossip about the war being almost over. This platoon does things by the book and if they follow rules, they’ll be fine. While the rest of the squad plays volleyball outside, the boys unload their gear onto bunks. Peewee mocks Johnson’s home state of Georgia, Perry realizes. Perry tries to write a letter home but can’t figure out what to say.
Stewart’s casual dismissal of the importance of Perry’s injury continues to reveal the army’s unconcerned attitude about the safety and wellbeing of its soldiers. It only cares about whether they can fight. Lieutenant Carroll’s willingness to acknowledge that danger persists as long as the fighting does and his concern with keeping his soldiers alive contrasts sharply with Stewart’s casual attitude towards the soldiers in his care. As Perry struggles to write a letter to his family, the book foreshadows how far removed his actual experiences in Vietnam will be from anything they could imagine.
Themes
Get the entire Fallen Angels LitChart as a printable PDF.
Perry remembers running around the track at Stuyvesant High School with his English teacher’s words ringing in his ears. Mrs. Liebow told him that he was too young to be “just an observer in life,” but Perry often felt overwhelmed, and holding himself aloof from his life made it feel more tolerable. Romantic, even. He could frame his loneliness and sense of being out of place with a different story and a “Mr. In-Your-Face” persona. But sometimes, when things got really hard, and he felt immense pressure to give in, he would see himself from the outside and push through. Mrs. Liebow told him that heroes’ perseverance separates them from mere mortals.
Stuyvesant is a competitive school; the fact that Perry got a place there instead of his local high school in Harlem pointedly, if obliquely, reminds readers of his intelligence and potential. He should neither be limited by racism and prejudice at home, nor wasted as cannon fodder in a futile war, yet here he is. This flashback reveals more of his character and also allows the book to introduce its definition of heroism, courtesy of Mrs. Liebow.
Themes
The volleyball game ends, and the rest of the squad comes in just before Peewee and Johnson come to violence. The sergeant, a tall, thin-faced Black man named Simpson, tells the “cherries” (virgins)—Perry, Peewee, Johnson, and Jenkins—that he has just 120 days left in Vietnam and he’s not going to let them get him killed before that. Peewee protests that they’re not “Congs,” and Simpson retorts that he prefers “charlies” to cherries. Perry says nothing but thinks it’s pretty strange for Simpson to worry more about his own men that the enemy Communists. The rest of the squad—one Black guy and four white ones—plays cards and volleyball to pass the time.
The sergeant’s attitude yet again suggests that the situation is less stable than the newly arrived soldiers have been led to believe. And Simpson’s preference for adversaries to newbies points toward the trust and cooperation the squad members need to have to keep themselves and each other alive. In light of this, it’s interesting that Perry still notices the races of his squad mates; the cohesive identity of “soldier” isn’t always enough, this suggests, to overcome systemic racism and prejudice.
Themes
Late in the afternoon, a lieutenant summons the squad for patrol duty. They grab their gear, quickly climb into a chopper, and fly to a landing zone, or LZ, in the hills. Perry feels excited and scared. He hopes his knee won’t give out. He remembers the army recruiters telling him that playing sports could get him a good post; he was assigned to Fort Devens on the understanding that he would play on their basketball team. He dreamed that this might be a steppingstone to the NBA, but then he injured his knee. He comes out of his reverie to Simpson screaming “wake the fuck up!” in his face—it’s time to move. The more experienced soldiers lift their feet more than necessary as they walk, and Perry doesn’t understand why.
Perry showed determination and perseverance in his attempts to escape the poverty and limitation of segregation by pursuing alternate paths: when school wouldn’t work, he joined the army and tried for a sports career. Finding himself in Vietnam thus represents a further roadblock of sorts, but also shows his commitment to his quietly heroic attempts to escape these limitations. Likewise, despite his fears, he uncomplainingly does what he's asked in Vietnam. Simpson’s anger at his daydreaming and the careful way the soldiers place their feet (to avoid landmines, although Perry doesn’t yet realize this) both suggest again that what Perry believes about the assignment being easy or safe is untrue. Indeed, nobody has warned Perry or the other new soldiers about landmines.
Themes
The patrol walks for an hour but doesn’t find anything and Simpson calls the helicopter to bring them back. He congratulates the men on a successful—and safe—mission. They must approach the camp perimeter carefully, sticking to a well-defined path free of defensive landmines. But suddenly, Perry hears a woosh and screaming. After a moment of panic and chaos, Simpson orders everyone to stick to the path and make for the perimeter as fast as possible. A corporal named Brunner drags a wounded man behind him. It’s Jenkins, with a shard of metal protruding from his chest. Perry watches as Jenkins looks perplexedly at his wound and takes his final breath.
On his very first mission—on his very first day in the active combat zone—Perry faces the unshakeable truth that the Vietnam War is not winding down and that doing what he’s told won’t automatically save him. The military’s ability to predict or observe all their adversaries’ actions limits its ability to protect the soldiers. Perry quickly sees that he can never let down his guard, and this constant vigilance becomes a key factor in the trauma he experiences.
Themes
