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Monaco
Lobel is a soldier in the squad with Richie Perry, Peewee, Johnson, Brunner, Brewster, Monaco, Walowick, and Sergeant Simpson. He comes from Hollywood, where his uncle works in the film industry, and he’s obsessed with movies. He voluntarily joined the army to try to prove to his father that he isn’t gay. Nevertheless, several of his squad mates clearly believe that he is, although they don’t let it bother them since his loyalty and friendship has already earned their trust. He copes with the war by pretending that he’s in a movie. Because he’s Jewish, he sides with the other soldiers from racialized groups—the Black Perry, Peewee, and Johnson, and the Italian Monaco—when Sergeant Dongan, Walowick, and Brunner begin to display racist attitudes.
Lobel Quotes in Fallen Angels
The Fallen Angels quotes below are all either spoken by Lobel or refer to Lobel. 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
“You call that a sport?” Monaco asked. “I mean, there you are, you gotta weigh two hundred pounds, and you got a rifle, and you’re against a squirrel that weighs maybe two or three pounds, and he ain’t got nothing.”
“Man, it’s a damn sport!” Simpson protested […]
“The way I figure it,” Monaco went on, “if you hunt a squirrel with a rifle, what do you hunt a bear with? Artillery?”
“Call in some white phosphorous on him,” Brew said. “That’ll get his attention until the jets zero in.”
[…]
“You don’t know nothing about no hunting!” Simpson was getting pissed. “You don’t know what hunting is!”
“What he’s trying to say […] is that the white phosphorous is enough. After it burns the bear’s ass off, then the good sergeant will finish him off with a couple of frag grenades,” [said Lobel].
[…] Sergeant Simpson got up and left the hooch.
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Chapter 6 Quotes
“Hey, Lobel, I didn’t mean anything,” I said. “I guess I’m just a little nervous.”
“No sweat […] I’m a little nervous, too. I’d be real nervous, except I know none of this is real and I’m just playing a part.”
“What part are you playing?”
“The part where the star of the movie is sitting in the foxhole explaining how he feels about life and stuff like that. You never get killed in movies when you’re doing that. Anytime you get killed in a movie, it’s after you set it up.”
“You play a part when we were on patrol?”
“That wasn’t a patrol […] that was a firefight […] Anytime anybody is getting shot at it’s a firefight. […] Anyway, I was playing Lee Marvin as a tough sergeant. That’s my best part.”
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Chapter 9 Quotes
Then I asked him about the letter.
“You know why that letter sucks?” he asked.
“How come?”
“Because I joined the friggin’ army in the first place so he would stop thinking I was a faggot,” Lobel said. “Now he thinks I’m a creep because I’m in the army.”
“What the hell does he know?”
“You know what I hope?” Lobel asked. “I hope I get killed over here so he has to fit that shit between his vodka martinis.”
“The next time we call for artillery, we’ll aim it right at your pad at home,” I said.
“You know what that jackass doesn’t know?” Lobel said, looking away from me, “He don’t know that now I can go back home and blow him away. That’s what I’m fucking trained for man. That’s what I’m fucking trained for.”
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Chapter 15 Quotes
Lobel damned near dragged Jamal into our hooch.
“Go ahead, tell him what you heard,” Lobel said to Jamal.
“Sergeant Simpson and Captain Stewart got into a fight,” Jamal said. “Captain Stewart told Sergeant Simpson that if he didn’t shut up and get out he was going to bust him down to private.”
[…]
“What they fighting about?” Johnson asked.
[…]
“He found out that Captain Stewart is volunteering Alpha Company all over the place. He asked him what he’s doing that for, and Captain Stewart said that if he didn’t want to fight, he shouldn’t have extended.”
What Jamal said went down hard. We didn’t mind doing our part because it had to be done, even though we didn’t have answers to why we were doing it.
But nobody wanted to go out and risk their lives so that Stewart could make major.
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Lobel Character Timeline in Fallen Angels
The timeline below shows where the character Lobel appears in Fallen Angels. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4
...Chicago; he wants to be on their side if they ever make it to America. Lobel, another squad soldier, says they could end the war faster if they just took the...
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...against a squirrel, what’s he gonna use against a bear, Monaco asks, artillery? Brew and Lobel suggest hitting a bear with some white phosphorus then calling in an airstrike, or just...
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...attempt to “make them love [the Americans],” Captain Stewart says with a smirk. Perry and Lobel give chocolate bars to a Vietnamese woman with a girl so tiny and pretty that...
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Chapter 6
That night, Perry gets his first guard duty with Lobel. Perry seems so nervous that Lobel asks him about it, and Perry says he can’t...
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Lobel’s uncle is a film director. Contrary to Perry’s assumption, Lobel wasn’t drafted. While he waits...
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Lobel breaks Perry’s reverie. He asks if Perry has a girlfriend. When Perry says no, Lobel...
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...answers that he hates Communism. Walowick says he fights because his country asks him too. Lobel and Brew both say something about the domino theory—that if Vietnam falls to the Communists,...
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...approach the landing zone, Monaco opens fire. One Vietcong fighter lurks among the trees. Then, Lobel sees him too, and the whole squad opens fire. Perry can’t see anything, but he...
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...news crew poses the Vietnamese soldier’s corpse and photographs it. Perry starts to agree with Lobel: this doesn’t seem real at all. Maybe it is a movie. Later, back in the...
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Chapter 9
...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....
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Perry leaves Lobel and catches up to Simpson. He wonders aloud what the Vietnamese people think of the...
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Lobel gets a letter from his father, condemning him for participating in an unjust war. Later,...
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Chapter 11
...Perry begins to realize that war entails hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of terror. Lobel approaches him in the hooch, confessing that he feels responsible for Carroll’s death. He says...
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...but the army sent him to the infantry because it’s short on officers. Brunner and Lobel get promoted from corporal to sergeant, and the rest of the squad get promoted from...
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Chapter 14
...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...
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...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...
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Chapter 15
One day, Lobel drags Jamal into the hooch, demanding he tell the whole squad what he just overheard....
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...of inactivity, the squad prepares to join a company-sized sweep of a nearby hilly area. Lobel writes an apologetic letter to his father and stashes it with his other belongings in...
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Chapter 17
...Monaco, the “niggers of the outfit,” in Johnson’s words. When Dongan pulls Peewee, Perry, and Lobel for guard duty to “check [them] out,” Peewee unzips his pants and tells Dongan to...
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Perry, Peewee, Lobel, and Dongan go to the guard foxhole. Perry strains to hear approaching enemies in the...
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Back at the hooch, Lobel approaches Peewee and Perry and asks if they think the unit will have a race...
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...Valley. When the marines are needed elsewhere, the mission is cancelled like so many others. Lobel tries and fails to organize a volleyball game. The company hears that General Westmoreland wants...
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Chapter 18
...the new sergeant arrived, he immediately shared beers with Walowick and Brunner, but he avoided Lobel, considering him “a faggot.” Johnson doesn’t care one way or the other about Lobel’s sexuality;...
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The men dig in at their new position. Perry catches Lobel staring with expressionless eyes into the distance. Lobel smiles—without losing the blankness of his expression—when...
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Chapter 20
...are!” and shooting his weapon at the door. Walowick yells “Cease fire!” while Johnson and Lobel wrestle Monaco’s weapon away from him. Monaco swears he saw some “Congs” pulling a soldier...
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...each and mail it for him if he doesn’t get the chance himself. It angers Lobel that Gearhart puts this responsibility on the soldiers. Peewee demands that Walowick open the letter...
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...in Vietnam. He keeps trying but he’s afraid of making it sound like the movies. Lobel pipes up to say that he has to make it sound like the movies, otherwise...
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Chapter 21
...they’re supposed to patrol, providing good cover for a Vietcong ambush. Brunner assigns Walowick and Lobel the unenviable task of checking out the ridge while the rest of the squad provides...
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Perry watches Walowick and Lobel crossing the stream and prays to God that, just this once, the ridge might be...
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...hide along the ridge, but no one shoots from that vantage. As they move out, Lobel shoots a VC soldier at close range. Brunner asks for immediate evacuation but learns that...
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Chapter 23
...being on the plane. He imagines being on patrol with Monaco on point, Peewee, Walowick, Lobel and Brunner following behind, Johnson carrying the big machine gun like a baby. Perry sees...
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