Fallen Angels - Walter Dean Myers
For many men of my generation, the Baby Boomers, death might best be personified by three simple letters: N-A-M. Fought in a far-off land for reasons that were often unclear even to the combatants, the war in Vietnam still looms both as one of this country’s most humbling and its most divisive experiences. It seems capable of galvanizing the country’s most easily polarized even today, more than thirty-five years after the last jarhead scrambled into the last helicopter to lift from the grounds of the U. S. Embassy in Saigon. The war and the men and women who directed it, fought in it, and died in it have been memorialized in scores of motion pictures and thousands (if not tens of thousands) of books. One such volume, directed toward a young adult audience, is Walter Dean Myers’ Fallen Angels. Myers’ book has garnered its share of awards: it’s received a Coretta Scott King Award; and was cited in the American Library Association’s (ALA) Margaret A. Edwards Award presented to Myers for his lifetime contribution to young adult literature. It’s also generated its share of controversy: Fallen Angels stands at number twenty-four on the ALA list of 100 most frequently challenged and banned books (1990-2000) and number six in the ALA’s list of most frequently challenged books of the twenty-first century. But why? To understand, perhaps you must understand the story…
Fallen Angels is not a deep philosophical discussion of the war in Vietnam; it’s a single soldier’s diary of his one and only tour of duty in-country. As seen through the eyes of seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, Vietnam is an alien land; dark and steamy and full of danger the youngster from Harlem has never sensed before. He misses his mother, his brother, shooting hoops with his friends. The other “men” – men by virtue of being a soldier in the midst of a war zone, not for their age – of Charlie Company become more than bunkmates: white, brown, or black they become brothers for having shared hell on earth. Though out in “The World” back in 1967 racial tension is shaking the cities; in Chu Lai and Tam Ky, everyone bleeds the same bright red blood no matter what the color of his skin. It’s a lesson Richie has learned quickly…
Through vivid descriptions of the few months of his tour, Richie Perry bears witness to the insanity inherent in war; to the moral ambiguity that so characterizes the war in Vietnam even to this day. His descriptions of battle action are raw; his record of a boy-soldier’s emotions powerful and lucid. It’s an account that is almost hackneyed for the appearance of all the standard highlights of a war narrative: the sudden death of the guy standing next to you; the slow and agonizing death of a man-child; the battle-hardened veteran NCO dismissive of his charges; the officer exposing troops to additional danger as he’s bucking for a promotion. Since the war is Vietnam, we know to expect racial hatred of anyone small and Asian; watch for the round-eyes’ frustration at their inability to distinguish between friend and foe; await the overreaction of the American soldiers to one too many deaths.
In the crucible of war, Richie Perry becomes something more than he was when he arrived. And yet he returns to his home diminished…
Walter Dean Myers penned Fallen Angels in 1988, fifteen years after the fall of Saigon and twenty years after the events chronicled in his book. He takes his title from the prayer uttered by a young lieutenant upon the death of a soldier under his command:
When people challenge books in schools and libraries, they are usually required to state the rationale for their objection. Fallen Angels has been challenged often in the past twenty years, ostensibly on the basis of raw language and – oddly enough, for a book written by a Black man about a Black soldier – for racism. Indeed, words beginning with S, H, D, and F do occur in its pages, albeit somewhat less often than one might expect of a war story. The so-called N word also makes an appearance or two, much in the same context as in gangsta rap (which, frankly, doesn’t say much in its favor).
Fallen Angels has also been challenged for “promoting homosexuality”: one character might be homosexual, while another says he doesn’t much care as long as the guy can fight. Yup, that’s “promotion” all right… It’s likewise been challenged in some venues as “pornographic” (I kid you not) and a “sex manual” (an odd description, given that the protagonist is still a virgin at the end of the book). Perhaps the only true grounds for objection might be for its violent nature; but if war isn’t violent, then what is? Besides, few challengers (if any) complain of the book's violence.
It’s curious that protests against Fallen Angels increased in the first few years of the twenty-first century, at precisely the same time that the country ramped up for, entered, and prosecuted a “good” war in the Middle East; one more “recovery” from the bad taste the war in Vietnam a generation ago left in the nation’s collective mouth. Perhaps the book’s open discussion of atrocities committed during that earlier war threatened some of the more PATRIOTic Americans, who felt that leaving it on library shelves might give young men and women pause when considering entering the armed forces. Indeed, Myers candidly discusses mutiny, “fragging” a superior officer, mutilation of corpses, a friendly fire incident, “collateral damage” involving the population of an entire village, bogus body counts, and a host of other shameful acts exposed by the memoirs of Vietnam veterans (although nothing about the humiliation and torture of prisoners of war). One can only hope that the forces of “right” are not so cynical as to attempt to put a positive spin on the Vietnam era by silencing critical viewpoints. One can only hope…
Fallen Angels is not a deep philosophical discussion of the war in Vietnam; it’s a single soldier’s diary of his one and only tour of duty in-country. As seen through the eyes of seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, Vietnam is an alien land; dark and steamy and full of danger the youngster from Harlem has never sensed before. He misses his mother, his brother, shooting hoops with his friends. The other “men” – men by virtue of being a soldier in the midst of a war zone, not for their age – of Charlie Company become more than bunkmates: white, brown, or black they become brothers for having shared hell on earth. Though out in “The World” back in 1967 racial tension is shaking the cities; in Chu Lai and Tam Ky, everyone bleeds the same bright red blood no matter what the color of his skin. It’s a lesson Richie has learned quickly…
Through vivid descriptions of the few months of his tour, Richie Perry bears witness to the insanity inherent in war; to the moral ambiguity that so characterizes the war in Vietnam even to this day. His descriptions of battle action are raw; his record of a boy-soldier’s emotions powerful and lucid. It’s an account that is almost hackneyed for the appearance of all the standard highlights of a war narrative: the sudden death of the guy standing next to you; the slow and agonizing death of a man-child; the battle-hardened veteran NCO dismissive of his charges; the officer exposing troops to additional danger as he’s bucking for a promotion. Since the war is Vietnam, we know to expect racial hatred of anyone small and Asian; watch for the round-eyes’ frustration at their inability to distinguish between friend and foe; await the overreaction of the American soldiers to one too many deaths.
In the crucible of war, Richie Perry becomes something more than he was when he arrived. And yet he returns to his home diminished…
Walter Dean Myers penned Fallen Angels in 1988, fifteen years after the fall of Saigon and twenty years after the events chronicled in his book. He takes his title from the prayer uttered by a young lieutenant upon the death of a soldier under his command:
“Lord, let us feel pity for Private Jenkins, and sorrow for ourselves, and all the angel warriors that fall. Let us fear death, but let it not live within us. Protect us, O Lord, and be merciful unto us. Amen.”Based in part on his own experiences as a soldier in the early 1960s, Myers’ depiction of life on the battlefields of Vietnam had little different to say when it was published in 1988; long after movies like “Coming Home” and “Apocalypse Now” had inserted catchphrases like “Charlie don’t surf” or “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” into the American consciousness. Richie Perry’s story is, however, even more powerful because he becomes everyman by simply surviving from day to day. His is a story told in a stark, linear narrative; unvarnished by flowery language and maudlin sentiments – the words of a simple young man who has to conserve all his strength for the business of surviving. It is this straightforward simplicity that imbues Fallen Angels with such power – and has made it a classic in the genre of soldier’s diaries, just as “Vietnam” made death a three-letter word.
When people challenge books in schools and libraries, they are usually required to state the rationale for their objection. Fallen Angels has been challenged often in the past twenty years, ostensibly on the basis of raw language and – oddly enough, for a book written by a Black man about a Black soldier – for racism. Indeed, words beginning with S, H, D, and F do occur in its pages, albeit somewhat less often than one might expect of a war story. The so-called N word also makes an appearance or two, much in the same context as in gangsta rap (which, frankly, doesn’t say much in its favor).
Fallen Angels has also been challenged for “promoting homosexuality”: one character might be homosexual, while another says he doesn’t much care as long as the guy can fight. Yup, that’s “promotion” all right… It’s likewise been challenged in some venues as “pornographic” (I kid you not) and a “sex manual” (an odd description, given that the protagonist is still a virgin at the end of the book). Perhaps the only true grounds for objection might be for its violent nature; but if war isn’t violent, then what is? Besides, few challengers (if any) complain of the book's violence.
It’s curious that protests against Fallen Angels increased in the first few years of the twenty-first century, at precisely the same time that the country ramped up for, entered, and prosecuted a “good” war in the Middle East; one more “recovery” from the bad taste the war in Vietnam a generation ago left in the nation’s collective mouth. Perhaps the book’s open discussion of atrocities committed during that earlier war threatened some of the more PATRIOTic Americans, who felt that leaving it on library shelves might give young men and women pause when considering entering the armed forces. Indeed, Myers candidly discusses mutiny, “fragging” a superior officer, mutilation of corpses, a friendly fire incident, “collateral damage” involving the population of an entire village, bogus body counts, and a host of other shameful acts exposed by the memoirs of Vietnam veterans (although nothing about the humiliation and torture of prisoners of war). One can only hope that the forces of “right” are not so cynical as to attempt to put a positive spin on the Vietnam era by silencing critical viewpoints. One can only hope…
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