Fallen Angels

As Perry lies in bed, he thinks about the reasons why he joined the army. He joined in part to earn money to help his brother Kenny and also to avoid having to think about and answer difficult questions about his dreams for the future, since he wants to be a writer and philosopher but cannot afford to go to college. In the morning, Peewee tells Perry that he likes the army because it is the first place in his life where everyone is equal and has the same items. As they eat, an African American man named Rings—he wears three rings on his fingers—approaches the young men and asks if he can cut them to make them blood brothers; he states that they need to stick together as African Americans. Perry and Peewee refuse, and Rings states that they are “Uncle Toms” (17).

Perry and Peewee are playing checkers when another, more experienced soldier joins them. He tells the pair about some of the things that he has seen and encountered, but he ultimately tells them that the war is coming to an end with an agreement signed in Paris. Later, Perry writes a letter to his brother stating that he had heard there won’t be any more fighting.

On their ninth day in Vietnam, Perry and his unit receive an orientation lecture that tells the men to take their malaria pills, to avoid having sex with the local women, to not purchase anything, and to stay away from drugs. After orientation, Peewee and Perry receive their orders: They are being sent to The First Corps in Chu Lai where there is active fighting. Perry and Peewee make a pact by spitting in their palms and then shaking hands; this brings Perry some comfort. Jenkins, a fellow soldier whom Peewee messed with earlier, Peewee, and Perry get on a truck headed for their new squad. All of the men are scared, and Jenkins even begins to cry.

Once in Chu Lai, Jenkins, Peewee, and Perry are sent to ride in the back of a netted truck to the company headquarters to receive their company placement. They are told they will be in Alpha Company, and while they wait for their helicopter, they meet a large, African American man named Johnson; he is extraordinarily strong. Peewee teases Johnson about being from Georgia, and tensions rise between the two of them. Later, Jenkins tells Perry that he is only in the military because of his father’s desire for him to have a military career. Jenkins tells Perry that he thinks he is going to die in Vietnam, and Perry reassures him that most soldiers here don’t even fire their weapons. In the morning, Jenkins, Perry, Johnson, and Peewee are transferred to their new base. Perry asks his commanding officer about his medical file, which states that due to a prior knee injury, he is not supposed to be in combat; the commanding officer states that he has not received that file. They receive their weapons and head to their new barracks. Perry tries to write a letter to his mother, but he has a difficult time finding the right words to say.

That night, Peewee, Perry, and Jenkins go on a night patrol with their squad. The squad sergeant, Simpson, tells the new members of his squad that he is only four months from being sent home and that the men’s inexperience better not get him killed. As they patrol, Perry daydreams for a moment, remembering how his knee injury ended his basketball career and changed the trajectory of his life. Sergeant Simpson pulls Perry back to the present as they walk through flat terrain with woods on either side of them. Not finding anything, Sergeant Simpson calls for a helicopter to pick them up, but as they walk back toward camp, Jenkins accidentally steps on a landmine, sending the squad into a panic. As Perry gathers his bearings, he sees two of the sergeants from camp pull Jenkins inside of the gates. Jenkins has a shard of metal sticking out of his chest, and he dies choking on his own blood.

After Jenkins’s death, Perry watches as the platoon leader, Lieutenant Carroll, and Sergeant Simpson place his body in a body bag. Perry struggles to find the words to say because he’s never experienced the sudden death of a person he knew; Perry feels deeply unsettled by the way that he feels numb inside. Lieutenant Carroll leads the platoon in a prayer in which he calls Jenkins an “angel warrior.” Perry asks what that means, and Lieutenant Carroll explains that his father—who used to be in the military—called all soldiers “angel warriors” because so many of them died young. Perry tries to write a letter to his mother about Jenkins’s death, but he can’t figure out what he is feeling, so he writes about Peewee instead.

Later, they bring in a Viet Cong soldier for questioning, and Peewee claims to have conversed with him; he states that they had a normal conversation, and the man was friendly. As Peewee tells the others about this, another squad member, Lobel, states that they should cast the Viet Cong in movies to make them happy like, he claims, they did after World War II. Soon, the squad goes on a public relations mission to a small Vietnamese village; they give the people food and supplies, and Lobel and Perry befriend a young girl named An Linh. Back at their base, Sergeant Simpson tells Perry and Peewee that the leader of their company, Captain Stewart, wants to be promoted to major, which can only happen if he increases his enemy “body count,” alluding to the idea that they may be forced to endure more dangerous missions.

Peewee and Perry receive letters from home; Peewee does not like what his letter says, and he crumples it up and throws it away several times before picking it back up and rereading it. The squad spends a few days in relative quiet, rewatching a Julie Andrews movie and listening to rumors about peace talks over the radio. After a brief, but ultimately inconsequential, confrontation between Corporal Brunner, a member of the squad, and a chef in the canteen, Alpha Company is sent on a sudden mission as news of a potential Viet Cong battalion pinning Charlie Company spreads. Perry’s squad quickly gets into a helicopter and flies into the jungle; Perry realizes that he doesn’t have a single prayer memorized and asks Peewee to remind him to learn some. When the helicopter lowers, hovering over the ground, Monaco from their squad exits first, followed by Lieutenant Carroll and Johnson. Perry jumps out next and lands on top of Johnson. The squad moves toward the trees, slowly, watching and walking. After 40 minutes of silence, the squad heads back to the landing zone and returns to the base.

Back at the base, Lieutenant Carroll calls Perry over to talk about his knee injury; he tells Perry that if his injury is bad enough, he will pull Perry from combat immediately. Despite having a chance to leave active combat, Perry decides to stay in his squad.

Perry and Lobel are placed on guard duty, tasked with sitting in a foxhole and watching 60 meters of barbed wire fencing around the base. Lobel, whose uncle is a film director, explains that he imagines himself as an actor in a movie playing a part. He claims that none of this is real, and he is playing the part of the protagonist who explains how he feels about life but never gets shot while he is monologuing. Lobel tells Perry that he should avoid playing the part of the kind Black man who gets killed trying to save everyone else. Perry tells Lobel that he wishes he had a girlfriend to write to, and Lobel offers to give him the address of a movie star whom he knows, but Perry is uninterested; he does not want a pretend girlfriend.

Later, a television crew interviews each of the members of Perry’s squad about why they are fighting in Vietnam. The squad members give varying answers from wanting to fight communism to fighting because their country asked them to; Perry states that he is fighting to keep the war from reaching American soil. Afterwards, the television crew accompanies the squad on a patrol. During the patrol, Monaco, the point man for the squad, spots an enemy soldier and begins to fire at him. Perry, who watches in shock, tries to fire his gun, but nothing happens. The squad kills the enemy soldier and Perry realizes that he forgot to load his weapon. The television crew and the squad return to their base, and the television crew take photos of the dead soldier, who is no larger than Perry’s younger brother Kenny.