Fallen Angels

Prolific children’s author Walter Dean Myers published his novel Fallen Angels in 1988. The young adult novel tells the story of a 17-year-old African American teenager from Harlem named Richie Perry who enlists in the United States Army during the Vietnam War. The novel follows Perry as he faces the realities of war with his fellow soldiers and transitions into adulthood on the battlefield. The novel contemplates racial and socio-economic issues in the US, the transition from childhood to adulthood, and the psychological impacts of war on soldiers. Fallen Angels won the Coretta Scott King Author Award in 1989.

This study guide refers to the special anniversary edition of the novel published in May 2008 by Scholastic Inc.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss war, graphic depictions of violence and death, and racial discrimination and racist language.

Plot Summary

Richie Perry is a 17-year-old African American recent high school graduate who joins the United States Army to kickstart his future career goals. Perry is sent to Vietnam to fight in the Vietnam War in 1967, harboring lofty ideas of heroism and morality in war. He meets Harold “Peewee” Gates on the way to Vietnam, and the pair become fast friends. When Perry arrives in Vietnam, it becomes clear that he is going to engage in combat despite a knee injury, which should keep him from being placed on the battlefield; there is a mix-up with the paperwork, and his proper medical profile does not arrive until the end of the novel. As Perry settles into his squad, he hears several rumors about the peace talks in Paris and how the war will likely end soon; the squad believes that they will soon be sent to Hawaii.

Perry’s squad is sent on a small mission, having been assured that they would only encounter minor skirmishes since there is not much fighting where they are stationed in Chu Lai. During the squad’s first patrol, Jenkins—a member of the squad whom Perry met during his orientation alongside Peewee—is killed by a landmine. Perry, having never witnessed a sudden or violent death, is deeply shaken by Jenkins’s death. Perry wants to communicate his newfound fear of death and violence to his mother and brother Kenny when he writes to them, but he finds that he cannot put his thoughts and feelings into proper words.

The squad continues to encounter an increasing amount of violence as the levels of brutality and destruction become more obvious. Perry begins to question the morality of his actions during the war; he becomes unsure that he and his fellow American soldiers are really the heroes that they’d been made out to be in the movies. In addition, Perry realizes that the captain of Alpha Company, Captain Stewart, has been reporting a higher number of Viet Cong casualties than the actual number to increase his “body count” in an effort to be promoted to major. Captain Stewart sends the squad on increasingly dangerous missions to help him reach his goal, demanding that the squad be “more aggressive” in their approach to killing their Viet Cong enemy.

On one of the squad's missions, the beloved platoon leader, Lieutenant Carroll, is killed. The squad is deeply disheartened by the loss and begin to outwardly question their place within the war. To Perry, the war seems to be more about killing the enemy before they can kill you than fighting to defend democracy from communism. Perry continues to write letters home but finds himself becoming increasingly frustrated with his inability to write about his true feelings to his younger brother. He doesn’t know how to admit to his brother, who has the same misconceptions of war that Perry did, the truth about combat and war. He thinks about his true motivations for joining the army, trying to understand the person he was and how it contrasts with the person whom he has become. Perry admits that, while he is highly intelligent, his race and socio-economic status are large barriers for him to achieve his dream to become a philosopher or writer. Perry begins to look for something to hold onto back home—a dream, goal, or special person—but his search comes up empty.

During another patrol, Perry is injured, and one of his squad mates, Brew, is killed. Perry is sent to a hospital and spends a few weeks recovering in a peaceful and quiet environment. As he is summoned back to his squad, Perry contemplates running away and abandoning his position, having been separated from the horrors of war and given time to process the danger and violence that he has endured. Perry ultimately returns to his squad, and he learns that his old squad leader, Sergeant Simpson, has returned to the US.

Sergeant Simpson is replaced by a racist, middle-aged white man named Sergeant Dongan. Peewee tells Perry that Sergeant Dongan has begun placing the African American members of the squad in dangerous positions—like point man and the man on the rear—despite members already having appointed themselves to these positions. Sergeant Dongan also exhibits anti-gay bias against one of the members of the squad, Lobel. Racial tensions rise within the squad as news of police brutality in Perry’s neighborhood, Harlem, leaves him frustrated and worried for his younger brother. However, the squad’s bonds overcome these racial tensions, as the white members of the squad promise their loyalty to those who are experiencing Sergeant Dongan’s prejudice. Sergeant Dongan, however, is killed relatively quickly during a combat mission, and in the absence of a Sergeant, Corporal Brunner, a member of the squad, is placed in command.

Brunner leads the men on a mission to retake an important hill from the Viet Cong soldiers. This mission proves to be extremely dangerous, and as Brunner mistakenly leads the squad further away from their evacuation point, a firefight breaks out with several Viet Cong soldiers, who were hiding in the reeds of the river. During this firefight, Peewee and Perry are separated from the squad. They hide in a spider hole beside the river overnight as an entire battalion of Viet Cong soldiers search the area. In the morning, a Viet Cong soldier checks the spider hole and wounds Peewee; Peewee and Perry kill the soldier and run to the extraction point. There, they see Monaco, a member of their squad, being used as bait by the Viet Cong since they know that the Americans will arrive to carry out a medical extraction. As the American helicopter approaches, Peewee alerts them to the Viet Cong’s presence, and the helicopter opens fire on the Viet Cong soldiers.

During the extraction, Perry is injured, but he, Monaco, and Peewee all manage to climb aboard the helicopter alive. They are taken to a hospital where they rest for two weeks before Peewee and Perry are told that they are being discharged from the army; Peewee was seriously injured and requires more medical care back in the US, and Perry’s medical profile is finally processed. Monaco is sent back to the squad, and Peewee and Perry fly home on the same plane. They watch as new soldiers enter Vietnam while caskets are simultaneously loaded onto the plane they had just exited. Perry and Peewee express their shock at the fact that they survived Vietnam, and they hold hands all the way back to the United States.