Fallen Angels

Fallen Angels Summary | Plot Summary

Young and innocent, Richard Perry starts his journey toward Vietnam during the "conflict." Along the way he meets several characters, each of them in Vietnam for different reasons. He befriends Peewee Gates in particular and they stick together from start to finish.

Perry has left behind a mother and a younger brother, Kenny. Perry and his mother have never understood each other and she does not know why he went into the army. He isn't completely sure himself, but he wanted to go to college and couldn't afford it. Kenny really looks up to Perry and Perry wants to make him proud.

Another black man tries to bond with Perry and Peewee, but the bonds of brotherhood and friendship are not simply by race. After a lot of waiting and moving from place to place Perry and Peewee finally join the Company they are replacements for. They are to fill spaces left by two boys who died. Rumors abound that the war is almost over and there will be little more fighting. Everyone anticipates being sent to Hawaii, and then home.

On their first patrol, Perry experiences death in Vietnam for the first time. One of the other new guys steps on a mine and is killed instantly. Perry and Peewee start doing work around the camp but find there is a lot of waiting time. They go on patrols, including a pacification mission to a nearby village, handing out medicine, food, and other gifts, trying to get the people to like them.

There are some tensions between certain people. Brunner Stewart "has a chip on his shoulder," and Johnson is quick to take offense. There is also racial tension, heightened by jokes and name-calling. Perry gets sick and misses a patrol, so he has to make one up by going with the Charlie Company. They end up accidentally attacking their own men in Alpha Company. Perry describes each event with quiet detachment. He does not know whether what they are doing is the right thing and he doesn't know how to deal with the death he sees around him.

The squad goes on a pacification mission, meaning they visit a nearby Vietnamese village and try to get the people to be on their side. They pass out malaria pills and give gifts and food. Later they go on an actual mission, an ambush of the VC. The squad is successful, but on the way back their leader, Lt. Carroll, is shot and killed. Perry is given the task of writing to Lt. Carroll's wife and explaining what happened. The higher-ups are impressed with his letter.

Some of the boys talk about what they are going to do when they leave Vietnam and get back to "the World." Walowick is looking at college courses and Monaco gets a proposal in the mail from his girlfriend. Perry has no idea what he's going to do when he gets back. Going into the Army in the first place was a way for him to delay deciding what came next.

Despite talk of peace, over the Christmas holiday fighting intensifies. Captain Stewart has a limited time left in his tour of duty and wants to be promoted. To do that he has to kill more VC, so he volunteers his squad for more combat. They go on a mission, and then they go on another back to the village where they did the pacification and find the VC have been there and the place is burning to the ground. The villagers are dead. Volunteering on more missions, the Company goes out on a sweep and Perry is wounded. In the hospital, although his wound is minor enough that he'll be sent back to his squad, he runs into a nurse named Judy Duncan who he met on the airplane ride over to Vietnam.

When Perry returns to his squad he discovers they are involved in teaching the South Vietnamese Army. Supporting South Vietnam, the U.S. is supposed to train their army to take over the fighting so we can withdraw. Despite this, there is a lot of tension between the GI's and the ARVN's. In one incident, both units are supposed to check out a certain hill. The ARVN's insist the GI's go first, yet they want to get to the top first, so as to claim it as their own victory. When the VC attacks, the ARVN are hit badly. As they attempt to regenerate their strength and chase the VC out of a nearby village, Perry's squad assists. When it's time to be pulled out, there are problems when the ARVN try to beat the Americans to their own choppers.

After some more quiet time back at the camp, the squad goes to patrol a stream; somehow, Perry and Peewee become separated from everyone else, when they are sent to investigate a ridge. While they were gone the squad comes under attack. The two friends have to spend the night in an enemy "spider hole." In the morning they find another guy from their squad, Monaco, and have to fight off several VC to get to some helicopters. Peewee and Perry are both wounded in the process. At the hospital Perry finds out that he and Peewee will be going home. Peewee's wounds are worse. Perry also finds out his nurse friend, Judy, was killed. The book ends with Peewee and Perry together on an airplane back to "the World."