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
Brunner tries to gather the squad for a pacification mission. Monaco refuses to move, and when Brunner threatens him, Monaco grabs a grenade from under his bed, pulls the pin, and tosses it in Brunner’s face. Everyone dives for cover. After a minute, Walowick gets up. Monaco grins at Brunner and says next time, he’ll use one with powder. Everyone cusses Monaco out. Then they all laugh, except Brunner and Brew, who’s still loudly praying. Perry doesn’t like that; he doesn’t want Brew to get closer to God than him.
In theory, Monaco pulls a funny prank, but it’s also another reminder of how desensitized the soldiers are becoming to violence. And, following the friendly fire incident, it seems significantly un-funny. The sense of danger that incident created infiltrates Perry’s faith in God, turning prayer into a competition for divine favor more than an act of faith or a comforting practice.
Themes
Sergeant Simpson explains that the squad has been assigned the pacification mission because the marines who oversaw it have been sent north. He warns the men not to mess with village women or shoot each other accidentally. Perry still has intrusive thoughts of his patrol with Charlie Company. And every time he leaves the camp or even just hears choppers, his stomach tenses. Still, they make it to the village without incident. As they approach, Lobel tells Perry that they’re like the bad guys in a cowboy movie riding into town. Perry, suddenly finding his M-16 bigger and more threatening than usual, doesn’t like that image.
The soldiers eagerly anticipate peace talks, but with the benefit of historical hindsight, readers can see the ways that these troop movements foreshadow the Tet Offensive, a coordinated escalation of violence orchestrated by Vietcong forces in the early months of 1968—soon after Perry arrives in Vietnam. Despite his premonitions of violence, Perry keeps forcing himself into the helicopter when it’s time for patrol, showing his heroism. But he still questions what he's doing in Vietnam; Lobel’s cinematic metaphor makes him uncomfortable because it questions whether the Americans are truly the good guys in this war.
Themes
Perry leaves Lobel and catches up to Simpson. He wonders aloud what the Vietnamese people think of the war, and Simpson answers that they’re used to it; the fighting has been going on since before most of them—the American soldiers included—were born. Perry tries to object, but Simpson won’t listen. As he brings gifts to each hut, Perry feels painfully aware of how he looks: huge and “armed to the teeth.” Although he wants the villagers to like him, he can see why they might look on him as a killer, like Lobel suggested.
Simpson refers to the fact that conflict raged in Vietnam from 1946 to 1975, first over the independence of the former French colony, then between communist forces (the NVA and Vietcong) and the remnants of the former colonial government (the ARVN) over who would rule the newly independent country. The United States became involved to halt the spread of communism during the Cold War, and Perry feels precisely like an uninvited aggressor rather than an ally of the Southern Vietnamese people as he enters the village.
Themes
The day in the village passes uneventfully. They find some medicinal salve. Brunner steals a small statue and when Perry calls him out on it, Johnson appears from nowhere—he has a sixth sense for when one of the Black guys is in trouble—to back him up. Peewee and Perry ask the villagers what the salves are for. With some pantomime, they determine that one is for hair growth, one is for feet, and one has something to do with pregnancy. They don’t know about the rest. Peewee buys some hair and foot salve. At noon, a chopper brings the soldiers hot food and a box of chicks to distribute. Brunner suspects one person of being Vietcong, but Carroll tells him not to worry about it—for now.
Perry and Johnson object to Brunner’s casual, almost thoughtless theft because they acknowledge the villagers’ humanity. The episode of the salves further humanizes the Vietnamese people, both as a reminder of shared humanity (all people fall sick at times and need medicines) and by generating bonds between the women and the soldiers. In general, as Johnson, Peewee, Perry and Carroll show, people are more inclined to empathy and helping each other out than to violence. But prolonged exposure to conflict makes Brunner suspicions.
Themes
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When they get back to the camp, they find out that the mess hall is serving roast beef, mashed potatoes, and carrots again. The soldiers nearly mutiny. Captain Stewart gets Alpha Company out of further pacification work since it doesn’t add to his body count. That night, Peewee gets a letter from Earlene saying she still loves him, but she had to get married because she’s pregnant. If she has a boy, she promises to name it Harry after him.
When the soldiers return from their peacekeeping mission to find yet another dinner of roast beef, the book metaphorically suggests that their actions don’t matter. Whether they come in peace or in violence, they cannot change the fate of Vietnam. In contrast to this sense of timeless suspension, Earlene’s letter reminds Peewee that life continues to move in the outside world, so quickly at times that it threatens to leave the soldiers behind.
Themes
Lobel gets a letter from his father, condemning him for participating in an unjust war. Later, Lobel tells Perry that he volunteered to make his father stop thinking he was “a faggot;” now his dad thinks he’s “a creep” instead. Perry jokes about calling in an artillery barrage on Lobel’s home, while Lobel muses about how easily he could “blow away” his dad thanks to his army training. Perry’s letter from Kenny talks about a new basketball league for younger kids. He writes back right away, encouraging Kenny to join and sending money to pay the fee. He worries about Kenny, who isn’t tough enough to make it in their harsh neighborhood. He thinks about how Lobel is ready to kill people to prove he isn’t queer, and he himself is ready to kill people to escape his old neighborhood.
The soldiers’ motives for joining the army become clearer. Perry needed to escape his old life’s limited opportunities; Lobel wanted to show his disapproving father that he wasn’t gay. Not only does the lack of a meaningful, global rationale for fighting expose the men to further trauma as the futility of the war slowly becomes clear, but it shows the emptiness of the values they think they’re fighting for, since the ”American way of life” Perry wants to protect includes racism, homophobia, and intractable poverty.
Themes
Two women—the first American ones anyone has seen in ages—visit camp from the American Red Cross to chat and distribute care packages. One embarrasses Perry when she asks what he plans to do after the war, and he can’t answer. It reminds him of the high school guidance counselor laughing at him when he told her he wanted to be a philosopher. He didn’t confess his dreams to people again after that.
The Red Cross volunteers inadvertently remind Perry of the painful reality he left behind. Life was certainly better in many ways when he wasn’t a soldier, but it wasn’t easy either. Nevertheless, despite the painful setbacks and disappointments, Perry has always found ways to keep himself motivated and moving forward.
Themes
The camp gets bad news: another patrol just lost two men on their pacification mission to the same village. Now the squad must go back and lay an ambush for any Vietcong guerillas in the vicinity. Sergeant Simpson explains that they need to show the villagers that the Americans can be peaceful, as long as they’re treated well. If not, they’ll pacify them to death.
One of the terrors of Vietnam for the American soldiers is that they can’t tell friend from foe among the Vietnamese whom they meet. The return to the village dramatizes this conflict. And the threat to pacify people to death suggests a similar lack of clarity among the Americans—are they the friends of the Vietnamese, or their foes?
Themes
