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Chapter 21
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
Perry strains his ears for the sounds of a firefight, but he can only hear chirping insects. When Peewee calls out his name, it startles Perry half to death. They don’t know where their adversaries are, or if anyone knows they’re there. Perry thinks they should open fire to let the squad know their position, but Peewee points out that the squad must already guess it. They decide to stay quiet and “shoot the shit” out of anything that approaches them. Perry clicks the safety off on his gun. He and Peewee draw closer and hold hands in the darkness. Perry remembers that Kenny fears the dark. Everyone, he muses, does.
Perry and Peewee seem to have somehow, miraculously, slipped past the Vietcong below them on the hill unnoticed. Shooting, as Perry suggests, might draw the squad’s attention, but then, for all he and Peewee know, their friends might already be dead. And it would certainly draw the attention of the Vietcong on the hill with them. Perry and Peewee now find themselves facing a hidden enemy practically alone, their plight replicating how the soldiers have generally been abandoned by their country and their military leadership.
Themes
Perry’s mind races. He can’t imagine the “Congs” overrunning the squad or outgunning Johnson. He mentally recites the Lord’s Prayer. Then, he hears Vietnamese voices approaching from the direction of the stream. He and Peewee open fire, causing confusion among the Vietcong. They take advantage of this and retreat down the back side of the ridge. The VC send up a flare, showing their position to Perry and Peewee; they haven’t yet crested the ridge, so they can’t yet see the American soldiers. Perry and Peewee back into an overhang on the ridge, where they find a spider hold. The VC forces certainly know about it, but it provides some cover.
The use of flares telegraphs the Vietcong fighters’ confidence; they wouldn’t risk betraying their position if they didn’t believe that they had far superior numbers and firepower. The fact that Stewart sent one tiny squad to patrol an area rife with Vietcong fighters suggests either that he has underestimated the Vietcong presence in the area or that he doesn’t care about the squad’s soldiers at all. In a way it doesn’t matter if he sent them in unknowingly or callously, as the result is the same: the squad feels betrayed by a leader who wants them to risk their lives so he can get promoted.
Themes
The Vietcong send up another flare. In its light, Perry can see dozens if not hundreds of soldiers. Voices drift past the spider hole, but no one stops to investigate it. Perry and Peewee crouch in the hole until their arms and legs fall asleep. Perry tries to keep his mind blank, but he can’t stop his thoughts. He worries about stories he’s heard of VC soldiers cutting off fingers and hands to steal American soldiers’ watches and rings. He takes his watch off, then slides it back on his wrist. He imagines kids playing in the parks of Harlem. But that world doesn’t feel real to him anymore. Only waiting for death in the hole with Peewee feels real.
As they crouch in the hole and count the soldiers walking past, Perry and Peewee know without a doubt they were sent on an impossible mission. Even if they’d been with the whole company—as they were earlier when they tried to take the hill with the ARVN soldiers—they wouldn’t have had the firepower to outgun their adversaries. Their plight echoes the fate of the American military, which will also find itself outnumbered and outmaneuvered and will eventually abandon the war without achieving victory. For modern readers, this knowledge highlights Perry’s and Peewee’s situation: ultimately, their sacrifices will achieve nothing.
Themes
Perry hears artillery in the distance, but he can’t tell what direction it’s coming from. He hopes that the company has realized that the squad hasn’t come back. Peewee wriggles uncomfortably and complains that he needs to relieve himself. This sends him and Perry into giggling fits. Perry tries to stay alert and tries not to think. And slowly, almost imperceptibly, dawn arrives.
Faced with the very real possibility that they will die, Perry and Peewee teeter between terror and hilarity. And Perry successfully resists the temptation to give into fantasy, which might give him some relief from the psychological torment of being in the hole, but which also makes him vulnerable to mistakes and surprise attacks.
Themes
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Outside, the Vietcong forces begin to stir. Peewee cautiously peers out and says they look like they’re about to move out. None are headed their way…yet. But he prepares a frag grenade, just in case. He peeks out again, then jerks his head back in; a VC fighter is headed their way. The VC investigates the hole, first poking the barrel of his gun around inside, then returning a few minutes later with a knife tied to a pole. It slices Peewee’s hand but then stabs into the dirt wall and emerges wiped clean of blood. Finally, the VC soldier throws his rifle into the hole then starts to climb in after it.
Peewee and Perry hid themselves successfully all night, but daylight exposes some of their efforts, like the trampled grass outside the spider hole. This, in turn, alerts the spider hole’s owner, and he approaches cautiously, trying to make sure that it’s safe to enter. Perry realizes that the fighter spends his days hidden on the hillside watching the movements of the American and ARVN troops; there is no way the squad could have hoped to avoid the ambush they faced. And this shows how much more disciplined the Vietcong soldiers are than the American forces initially assumed.
Themes
Perry shoots the fighter, then Peewee helps pull the body into the hole. Perry’s shot wasn’t fatal, and the fighter struggles wildly until Peewee and Perry strangle him to death. Then, they pull him the rest of the way into the hole. Perry realizes he’s just a kid, even younger than himself. But before he can think about this too much, he and Peewee scramble out into the sunshine and fresh air.
By now, neither Perry nor Peewee hesitates to kill the Vietcong soldier; killing is their job, and when they’re faced with the choice between killing and being killed, they do what’s necessary. When it’s done, Perry does recognize their victim’s humanity, who is the same young age as the American boys. But Perry must push down his empathetic feelings if he wants to survive, highlighting how war destroys human empathy.
Themes
Outside of the hole, it’s a beautiful, bright morning. A Vietnamese farmer in the rice paddy below the ridge turns towards them, ducking under the water when Peewee raises his rifle. Peewee and Perry retreat down the stream side of the ridge. They cross it and are on their way back to the landing zone when Peewee collapses. Perry refuses to abandon his friend, helping him up and supporting his weight as they limp back toward the landing zone.
Abandoned and alone, Perry and Peewee have no choice but to keep going if they want to escape this mission with their lives. They must cross the open fields and expose themselves to VC scrutiny on the ridgeline. And they both swallow their terror and pain—Perry isn’t even aware that Peewee got injured until he collapses—to do so.
Themes
At the landing zone, they find Monaco sitting beneath a tree with his head in his hands. Peewee suspects a trap that Perry couldn’t imagine, and after a few minutes, they realize that Vietcong fighters are hiding behind two clumpy bushes, waiting to ambush any helicopter that comes back to check for what’s left of the squad. They make plans to kill the fighters when the noise of the helicopter provides them some cover. Perry marvels at Peewee’s desire to fight back, despite his injuries. What kind of men are soldiers, he wonders. Is he one? And if he is, will he ever be able to go back to being anything else?
Even as he becomes more hardhearted and used to killing, Perry never feels that he fully inhabits the role of soldier that his army service forces on him. He lacks the street smarts of someone like Peewee, who remains alert for traps at all times. In contrast, Perry seems to innately trust others, a quality that causes a lot of his suffering since his superiors so often betray him and other soldiers in Vietnam. As he waits for rescue, he reflects on how the war has changed him. It’s deprived him of his trust, and he doesn’t know what, if anything, has replaced it. Much of his trauma grows from this loss of identity and the questions it raises about himself, the war, and what it all means.
Themes
Perry, Peewee, and Monaco all sit silently under the shadow of death. Perry wonders what Monaco is thinking about. Then, when they hear the approaching chopper, he and Peewee open fire on the first suspicious bush. By the time the Vietcong realize what’s happening, the chopper has spotted and opened fire on them. Perry and Peewee take out the fighters in the bush nearest Monaco. The chopper hits the dirt, and Perry and Monaco shove Peewee into it, scrambling up after him. As hands pull Perry inside, he feels a searing pain in his right leg. He’s been shot. But as the helicopter careens into the air, one single thought fills Perry: he is still alive.
Perry’s image of waiting in the shadow of death comes from the 23rd Psalm, which he and other soldiers use as a prayer: its words promise that those who walk with God will fear no evil even in the valley of the shadow of death. And, as elsewhere, the combination of the prayer’s words with the sense of fellowship and shared experience that prayer can provide—Perry waits with his friends, not alone—brings comfort. In light of the abandonment and betrayal the soldiers suffer at the hands of their leaders, they can only rely on the relationships they form with their squad mates. Thus, it’s fitting that the book’s clearest example of heroism focuses not on some vague military objective but on three friends escaping certain death together.
Themes
