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
Jamal, the camp medic, distributes the weekly malaria pills and congratulates Perry on getting three Vietcong fighters. Perry clarifies that they got one. But the medic saw Captain Stewart’s report to Regiment, which listed three. After the medic leaves, Perry flips through a recent newspaper and thinks about home. He wants another pen pal or to have some sort of plan for after the war to make him feel more connected to “the World.” But he can’t think of anything. He wonders if the Vietcong fighter had a life, family, or plans. Before he turned from a human being into the squad’s trophy. The rest of the squad returns triumphant from their volleyball game. Walowick asks if the “dead gook” messed Perry up, and Perry says, yeah, even worse than Jenkins. Walowick doesn’t remember Jenkins.
Captain Stewart needs a higher body count to get his promotion; his willingness to inflate numbers in his reports hints that he might willingly lie to his soldiers too, if it suits his goals. Perry volunteered believing that he was protecting his country, but it seems like he’s just there to help another man get ahead. In the hands of the media, the VC fighter becomes a trophy and a sign of the Americans’ inevitable victory. They use him to tell the story they want to tell, rather than the truth. And the war dehumanizes both the dead VC soldier and Jenkins, whom only Perry seems to remember any more.
Themes
Walowick and Perry set up a chessboard as Jamal returns with the report, which clearly notes three confirmed kills. Walowick says one can never know how many they actually kill, because the other guerrillas grab the bodies. They also clean up their artillery shells, leaving no trace of their presence. Perry remembers the first death he ever witnessed, a gang shooting in New York. He was going home when it happened, a bunch of Brooklyn gang members jumping from their car and shooting into the street. They killed one kid. Perry wins both games he plays with Walowick, because Walowick’s strategy of capturing the most pieces often leaves him in a bad position.
While the circumstances conspire to deprive Jenkins and the dead VC fighter of their humanity, Perry mourns each, in different ways. His memory of the first death he witnessed suggests that people find ways to be terrible to each other even outside of war zones, especially when they dehumanize others through racism and discrimination. Perry tries to get his mind off things by playing chess with Walowick, but Walowick’s strategy points toward the wasteful ways the Americans are deploying and using their troops, including Perry and his friends.
Themes
That night, Perry can’t sleep because he can’t stop thinking about the dead Vietcong fighter. He tries to think about Kenny instead. They used to imagine traveling the world. Perry had a hard time bringing others into his dreams, but Kenny always wanted to bring Mama. Perry wakes with an excruciating stomachache at 4 am. Peewee fetches Jamal, who casually informs Perry that he’s got “the shits, ” and he must just ride them out. Perry “crap[s] out most of [his] insides” at 5:10, 5:20, 5:41, 5:55, and 6:30 am.
Perry’s illness graphically illustrates all the ways in which the Vietnam War—like all wars—is hell. Discomfort and illness from the poor sanitation, unclean water, and close quarters of the firebase add misery to the life-threatening dangers he regularly faces on patrol. And all of these indignities, big and small, conspire to slowly dehumanize him, making him feel less and less important.
Themes
By the next day, Perry has recovered enough to pay attention to the excitement in camp. He hears that a Charlie Company sergeant refused to take his squad on patrol, afraid of dying so close to the truce being set. Later in the day, Johnson and Walowick begin calling each other names; their tiff escalates into a fistfight so violent that it takes six men to break it up. Captain Stewart hauls them into his office and calls Perry as a witness, who confirms that Walowick called Johnson a “cootie,” a germ. Johnson protests that’s as bad as being called the n-word, and the pair begin to fight again, right in the captain’s office. He orders them to stop talking to each other.
Increasing danger and casualties give rise to discord as soldiers slowly realize how little their distant, faceless superiors seem to care about them. But clinging to the false hope and gossip about peace doesn’t serve anyone, either. As the situation deteriorates, the soldiers begin to turn on each other in ways that remind readers of the internal conflicts and divisions that plague American society, such as racism and segregation. Captain Stewart’s failure to broker a peace between Johnson and Walowick suggests the emptiness of hoping for a peaceful conclusion to the war.
Themes
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Peewee asks Perry to help him write a letter to the girlfriend, Earlene, who broke up with him soon after he arrived in Vietnam. Peewee dictates and Perry writes, demanding to know why she traded Peewee for another, less attractive man. Peewee says he knows she needs help taking care of her daughter and that it’s hard to wait, but he promises to be worth waiting for. Perry asks if Peewee thinks the letter will convince her, and Peewee replies that she already married the other man. He just wants to write the letter to break her heart.
Like Perry’s diarrhea, the letter from Earlene breaking up with Peewee reminds readers that war’s misery arises from more than just the omnipresence of death. Friends and family left behind suffer too, albeit in less direct ways. Perry’s desire to hurt Earlene betrays the fighting spirit that rises up in him when he’s pushed too far. But he has no choice but to keep going forward, despite his own broken heart.
Themes
Peewee goes to mail the letter, and Johnson comes into the hooch. Brunner starts to tell him that being called a name isn’t a big deal, and Johnson replies that he will beat up anyone who calls him anything but his name. Even the giant, muscled Brunner seems intimidated.
Brunner sides with his fellow white soldier, Walowick, and tries to use his privileged position to minimize the slights Johnson has experienced as a Black man. But Johnson refuses to be cowed by Walowick, Brunner, or anyone. He maintains his dignity and insists that people will treat him as a human being.
Themes
Late that night, the rancid smell of the insect repellant wakes Perry up and he watches Brew praying. This reminds Perry that he should start again, too—he feels guilty about waiting until “Nam” to get back to God, but also doesn’t want to not be close to God there. He fumbles through the Lord’s Prayer but can’t remember it all of it. He used to say it each night with Mama and Kenny, but he stopped the night his dad left them. It turns out he can’t say it in Nam, either.
The horrors of war leave Perry with little to cling to: his distant family can’t understand what he’s going through, his superior officers don’t seem overly concerned with his health and safety, and racism divides the squad into Black and white cliques. He turns to God as a last resort, mistrusting prayer because it hasn’t given him enough relief in earlier hard times.
Themes
In the morning, Perry wakes to the sound of incoming helicopters. Outside the mess tent, he asks Lieutenant Carroll what’s going on, but Carroll doesn’t know. Carroll says the patrol Perry missed while he was sick went well but he doesn’t think they should have been out in the jungle. Something seemed off. After breakfast, Captain Stewart summons Perry to fill in for another soldier when Charlie Company goes on patrol.
Of Perry’s superior officers, only Carroll seems to care about the safety and wellbeing of his men (even Simpson worries more about his own life than theirs). His sense that something isn’t right foreshadows the impending VC uprising in the early months of 1968—something Stewart and others seem to willfully ignore.
Themes
