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Brunner
Jenkins is a young, white private who is assigned to the same company as Richie Perry, Peewee, and Johnson. Jenkins’ father, an army colonel, forced Jenkins to volunteer, hoping that he would go to Officers Candidate School at the end of his tour in Vietnam. But Jenkins is terrified and can barely keep himself together on the trip from Saigon to Alpha Company’s firebase. He dies at the conclusion of his first patrol, after stepping on a land mine.
Jenkins Quotes in Fallen Angels
The Fallen Angels quotes below are all either spoken by Jenkins or refer to Jenkins. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 4 Quotes
The village was a good ten minutes away and everybody seemed relaxed. I wasn’t. I was scared.
I had never thought of myself as being afraid of anything. I thought I would always be a middle-of-the-road kind of guy, not too brave, but not too scared, either. I was wrong. I was scared every time I left the hooch.
On the way to the chopper, I found myself holding my breath. I kept thinking of the noise I had heard when Jenkins got it. By the time we took off I was panting.
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Chapter 7 Quotes
An image of the VC we had killed flashed through my mind. I wondered if he had a family? Had he been out on a patrol? When did he know he was going to die?
What was worse than thinking about him dead was the way we looked at him. At least we had cared for Jenkins, had trembled when he died. He was one of us, an American, a human. But the dead Vietnamese soldier, his body sprawled out in the mud, was no longer a human being. He was a thing, a trophy. I wondered if I would become a trophy.
“We won.” Walowick came in after the volleyball game and sat on the edge of the bunk. “They’re paying us off in beer.”
“Way to go,” I said.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Seeing that dead gook mess you up some?”
“A little,” I said. “Maybe even more than Jenkins.”
“Who’s Jenkins?”
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Chapter 11 Quotes
The war was different now. Nam was different. Jenkins had been outside of me, even the guys in Charlie Company had been outside. Lieutenant Carroll was inside of me, he was part of me. Part of me was dead with him. I wanted to be sad, to cry for him, maybe bang my fists against the sides of the hooch. But what I felt was numb. I just had these pictures of him walking along with us on patrol or sitting in the mess area, looking down into a coffee cup. It was what I was building in my mind, a series of pictures of things I had seen, of guys I had seen. I found myself trying to push them from my mind, but they seemed more and more a part of me.
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Jenkins Character Timeline in Fallen Angels
The timeline below shows where the character Jenkins appears in Fallen Angels. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2
New soldiers arrive, including an absolutely terrified man called Jenkins. Peewee has some fun at Jenkins’ expense, claiming to have been in Vietnam for eight...
(full context)
...mosquitos attack the soldiers. The lieutenant forgot to mention their army-issued insect repellant. Perry, Peewee, Jenkins, and another guy will go north to join the 196th at Chu Lai. An easy...
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...as they climb into the truck to the airport, Perry’s mouth goes dry with anxiety. Jenkins cries softly.
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Chapter 3
...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 ...
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...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...
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...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;...
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...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...
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...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...
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...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...
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Chapter 4
...they expect a lot of guys to need them. He takes it back to where Jenkins’ body lies in the dirt, and watches while other soldiers zip Jenkins’ body into it....
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Perry writes a letter to Mama about Jenkins’ death. He tears it up. He doesn’t want to upset her or admit that he...
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Chapter 6
...nervous that Lobel asks him about it, and Perry says he can’t stop thinking about Jenkins. Lobel doesn’t remember Jenkins; he keeps his own fears at bay by imagining himself as...
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Chapter 7
...asks if the “dead gook” messed Perry up, and Perry says, yeah, even worse than Jenkins. Walowick doesn’t remember Jenkins.
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Chapter 11
...his mind, but he knows he can’t. The gentle lieutenant will stay there, just like Jenkins.
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...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...
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Chapter 16
...then several hands lift him into a helicopter. The smell of blood reminds him of Jenkins’ death as he listens to the medics working on Brew. He tries to watch but...
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Chapter 23
...sees himself at the rear, imagines turning and seeing the others trailing the platoon: Brew, Jenkins, Sergeant Dongan, Turner, Lewis, Lieutenant Carroll, and all the others whose deaths he witnessed. He...
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