Fallen Angels

Very heavy war book focused on a young man from Brooklyn fighting in the Vietnam War.

The audiobook was wonderfully narrated and the pacing is fast and heart pounding. I genuinely didn't know if the MC would make it or if the ending would be abrupt, further highlighting the atrocities of war.

I'm surprised this isn't a mandatory read, but I could see how others would advocate against this book. By highlighting the atrocities of war, this may discourage many from enlisting in future wars.

I read this book, and taught it to my remedial English summer school class. It's a very real book, reflecting not only the modern American enlisted man's mindset; I say modern because, despite being set forty years ago, you can walk onto any army post, any camp, and hear exactly these same thoughts espoused, in roughly the same language. I do plan on reading Myers' companion piece, Sunrise Over Fallujah, and I expect roughly the same: a coming-of-age story, mixed with life-and-death struggles, that says something true about the nature of a war that is fought by youth.

There are many books that try and describe the visceral horrors of war. For Walter Dean Myers, that is his 1983 book Fallen Angels. I first tried to read this book back when I was in high school, and I can remember not really grasping the language and only wanting to read it for action. Now re-reading it, I discover just how much Perry has changed, and how for him, and many Veterans like him, their lives will never be the same.

The Vietnam war was one that seem bungled up from the start and would be continued to have that appearance to the very end of the conflict. Our reasons for going in were murky at best, and our strategy for winning was not exactly clear, being led more by the number of enemies killed, rather than any sort of the noticeable change in the state of the Republic of Vietnam. The men who fought in the conflict were mostly those who were middle to lower-class and could not afford to go to college. Many went in thinking that they were going to win this war easily only to discover that they were fighting a determined enemy who did not often play by conventional rules of war. As men were discharged, they went home to find a public who did not like and even hated them for the ‘crimes' they had committed. Many real-life Veterans today do not feel that they got the recognition they so rightfully deserve.

Much of this is displayed in this book with unflinching honesty. We see the reasons why characters fight in the war: some want to get money for a better life, and others believe in the domino theory about Communism taking control of Asia. Our main character, Richard Perry, simply joins the army to get away from his life in Harlem. Wanting to get away from the questions about what he plans to do with his future, he gets sent to Vietnam believing that his medical profile will keep him out of the fighting. We soon see that he is sadly mistaken as he has to face the worst that the Vietcong and NVA have to offer, from artillery slamming into the ground to spider holes hidden in dense foliage, there are threats everywhere. And Perry has to deal with every single one.

I must say that I liked this book from the standpoint that it was interesting to see the war from a boots-on-the-ground perspective. Many of the characters are those who one comes to respect, if not actually like. Also, it is fascinating to see just what things were like for the Vietnamese people, as they were stuck between the American and South Vietnamese armies on the one side, and the Vietcong and NVA on the other. In fact, I could not help but be reminded of the war of my generation (Iraq and Afghanistan). While we went in for better reasons (as far as the war on Terror is concerned) we still faced many of the same issues in terms of guerilla warfare and working with a populace that could go from shaking your hand one minute, to trying to kill you the next. All of this made for a book that I liked reading as I drew context not only to the things I had learned about in history class but also to what we now experience today.

There were a few things that I dislike about this book, however. One would be the cliches. There is just no getting around it that what was interesting and different in war books in the 1980s is now something that most people can see coming from a mile off. Then there is the character of Peewee. I just didn't find him funny, nor did I latch onto his character when I think I was supposed to.

Still, this was overall a good book. In fact, I want to read Myers's book Sunrise over Fallujah, this book's spiritual successor about Operation Iraqi Freedom, featuring Perry's nephew. Again, it was one that I had read in high school and had not really liked. Perhaps I'll learn to like it more now that I am older. As for this book, I gave it a four out of five.