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Chapter 4
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
Time passes, and anticipation for the war’s end grows. Perry gets a letter from Mama, full of complaints about her swollen feet. Peewee says that happened to his mother, too; the doctors couldn’t fix it and she finally got desperate enough to go to a “mojo” lady. While they talk, Walowick bursts in, full of indignation that one of the soldiers in from Chu Lai is smoking pot like a “damn white hippie.” Peewee wants to know why Walowick called out white hippie, since he imagines all hippies as white. Perry says that New York has Black hippies, but Peewee retorts that all New Yorkers are white, that even Perry can “pass.”
As Peewee and Perry bond over their mothers’ similar experiences, their complaints about swollen feet emphasize the disconnect between the world back home and the life-and-death struggles on the ground in Vietnam. How will they be able to explain the war’s realities to their families, they wonder. In contrast, the debate about Black and white hippies shows how other things, like segregation and racism, follow the soldiers all the way to Vietnam.
Themes
For two glorious days, the squad does nothing—no formations, no patrol, nothing. They watch a new movie. A new supply of insect repellant comes in, which Carroll notes makes great Molotov cocktails. Peewee wants to know why they’d need to make those, since the camp already has so many explosives. They eat roast beef, mashed potatoes, and carrots for the second time in a week. They re-re-watch the movie, and then they watch it without sound while they make up their own dialogue. They listen to the radio news reports about peace treaty negotiations and how the Americans are winning. They hear stories of other units fighting, and Perry wonders what it feels like to shoot a Vietcong fighter.
Carroll’s instinct to turn the new supply of insect repellant into makeshift bombs suggests the degree to which the war has traumatized him, and by extension, the other soldiers. A sense of timelessness develops as the soldiers eat the same meal and watch the same movie over and over. Similarly, the war seems stuck in a loop of constant combat that fails to yield progress for either side. The contrast between the news reports and the battlefield gossip yet again points to how the government and media sanitized and glorified their accounts of the Vietnam War.
Themes
Perry mostly wants to shoot an enemy in the abstract, so that he can say he did when he gets home. He wants to impress Kenny. Kenny looks up to Perry, maybe because Perry’s always been better at sports and school, maybe because Perry became Kenny’s primary caregiver after their dad left and while Mama was drinking. Perry lays awake at night listening to the rats and the mosquitos and thinking about Kenny.
Perry betrays the extent to which cultural narratives of heroism—the good guy taking out the bad guy—dominate his thinking. He hasn’t yet realized the value of Mrs. Liebow’s alternate definition. But the way he subconsciously links his desire to impress Kenny with his desire to take care of his family shows that he does have the makings of a hero.
Themes
At breakfast, Peewee asks for more roast beef. Overhearing him, Brunner begins to harass the cook about it; the cook spits in a cup and hands it to “skinhead” Brunner as his breakfast ration. Captain Stewart steps in just as two jets fly overhead and begin to make bombing runs on a site a few miles away. Then someone calls Stewart to the HQ tent, and everyone starts running, except for Lieutenant Carroll. When Perry points out that the other officers went to HQ, Carroll quietly remarks that they know where to find him. He walks slowly toward his hooch.
Racial and social tensions continue to simmer, suggesting that the social and racial ills of American society have followed the soldiers abroad. In moments like this, the book suggests that American society had important things to attend to at home. The fact that Brunner’s argument with the cook only ends when an attack begins pointedly reminds the men that they’re allegedly on the same side, despite their differences.
Themes
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But the choppers arrive before Carroll can make it to his hooch. Perry’s stomach tightens with fear, and he wills himself to relax. Sergeant Simpson rounds up Alpha Company as Carroll asks what’s going on. Simpson tells him that Vietcong forces have pinned down Charlie Company a few miles away. Alpha Company must rescue them because the marines have been reassigned to fight a battalion of VC fighters elsewhere. Carroll finally heads for the HQ tent. Simpson explains the mission: two of the company’s four platoons will protect the landing zone, while the other two clear “hostiles” so Charlie Company can escape.
What Perry overhears yet again suggests that the war isn’t going as well for the Americans as he and everyone else have been led to believe; the NVA and VC are building up their troops and they continue to score battlefield successes against their American adversaries. Perry worries at the implications of these facts, but he cannot indulge in them; the men of Charlie Company need help and he heroically puts aside his own fears as he joins the rescue mission.
Themes
As they prepare to board the choppers, Peewee whispers to Perry that Charlie Company must have been out in the jungle all night. In the rush to board, Brunner hits Peewee in the head with his rifle and Perry bangs his bad knee. As they fly, Carroll calls out instructions and Perry wishes he knew a prayer. Peewee offers one of his own: “Flying into combat, ’bout to have a fit, Lord, if you listenin’, Please get me out this shit!” The pilot drops the chopper into the landing zone so abruptly that at first Perry thinks they’ve been hit.
Perry’s innate strength of character can only go so far in helping him to courageously face the situation, and he begins to wish for something else. Prayer seems like it might fill that gap, both because religious faith gives the soldiers a higher power than their fallible commanders to trust in, and because it acknowledges their shared humanity and experiences. The prayer that Peewee offers, irreverent as its creator, nevertheless eloquently expresses everything it must to accomplish these goals.
Themes
Monaco, with a last-minute prayer, leaps out of the door, followed by Carroll and Johnson. Perry realizes to his surprise that they’re still 10 feet above the ground. He jumps and lands on Johnson, and the next two soldiers land on him before he can get up. Keeping low to the ground, the company spreads out. Then they wait. They wait while the choppers leave; they wait while listening to gunshots in the dense jungle; they wait while the choppers return to pick up Charlie Company and leave again. Then, they retreat to the landing zone for their own ride back to camp. Back at the hooch, Simpson says Charlie Company made out well; they only lost nine people. But he’s worried by their reports that they faced uniformed Northern Vietnamese troops.
Simpson trivializes the losses of Charlie Company—nine men represents nearly an entire squad, suggesting his cavalier attitude towards the safety of his foot soldiers. Furthermore, lumping these “light” losses together obscures the individual tragedy each one represents for a family somewhere. As the hints of a broader NVA/Vietcong escalation continue, they suggest that military leadership keeps its soldiers in the dark or that it vastly underestimates the power of its adversaries—both of which have potentially devastating consequences.
Themes
Lieutenant Carroll pulls Perry aside to talk about his medical profile. Perry explains that his knee isn’t bothering him on patrols or anything; he just doesn’t want to get “messed up” if it gives out on him at the wrong moment. The squad depends on each and every member, Carroll says, but he doesn’t want to push Perry too hard. Perry says he’ll wait for his medical profile to come though before he puts in for a transfer. When Peewee finds out, he tells Perry not to be a hero. But Perry thinks the knee will be okay. He now realizes that the real question is what any of them are doing in Vietnam.
Perry again demonstrates his quiet perseverance—really, the book argues, heroism—when he refuses to ask for special treatment because of his knee. His injury seems trivial in light of the dangers he and everyone else face. But this conversation does nothing to alleviate his growing, uncomfortable feeling that impersonal, distant military leadership wants him—and the rest of the American soldiers in Vietnam—to fight a war they have no business being in.
Themes
