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Lobel
Sergeant Simpson is the leader of Alpha Company when Richie Perry, Peewee, Johnson, and Jenkins arrive in Vietnam. This Black “old-timer” is near the end of his tour and his single imperative is to survive to the end of his tour. Everyone in the squad—including Walowick, Brunner, Monaco, Brewster, and Lobel as well as the new soldiers—respects Simpson, and he keeps them all alive during his tenure. His tour ends and he leaves the country while Perry recuperates from his first battlefield wounds at Chu Lai.
Simpson Quotes in Fallen Angels
The Fallen Angels quotes below are all either spoken by Simpson or refer to Simpson. 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:
).
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.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14
Quotes
The village looked like the one they had constructed for practice at Fort Devens. Only here there were real people […]
There was a sense of panic in the air. We had our weapons ready. Sergeant Simpson was telling us not to kill the civilians. I didn’t consciously want to kill anybody, anything. But I felt strange. The sight of all the bodies lying around, the smell of blood and puke and urine, made my head spin, pushed me to a different place. I wanted to fire my weapon, to destroy the nightmare around me. I didn’t want it to be real, this much death, this much dying, this waste of human life. I didn’t want it.
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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Simpson Quotes in Fallen Angels
The Fallen Angels quotes below are all either spoken by Simpson or refer to Simpson. 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:
).
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.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14
Quotes
The village looked like the one they had constructed for practice at Fort Devens. Only here there were real people […]
There was a sense of panic in the air. We had our weapons ready. Sergeant Simpson was telling us not to kill the civilians. I didn’t consciously want to kill anybody, anything. But I felt strange. The sight of all the bodies lying around, the smell of blood and puke and urine, made my head spin, pushed me to a different place. I wanted to fire my weapon, to destroy the nightmare around me. I didn’t want it to be real, this much death, this much dying, this waste of human life. I didn’t want it.
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.
