Fallen Angels

Fallen Angels

Walter Dean Myers

In Fallen Angels, Walter Dean Myers introduces the theme of how a person can change just by the environment they enter. He does this through the character Richie Perry and his experience in the Vietnam War. The reader can get an idea of how this occurs by Perry?s conflict with man, himself, and the Vietnamese wilderness.
Perry?s whole ordeal in ?Nam? is mainly focused around the ?firefights? he encounters against the Vietcong (VC) and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA). As he first arrives ?in country?; he can sense this new evil creeping over him. This is when the reader can see the changes begin. Perry is used to military life yet he cannot cope with the sudden death that seems to envelop nearly everyone in an instant. When Jenkins, a boy Perry met on the plane ride over, steps on a mine and is killed on their first patrol Perry is dumb stuck and no longer finds anything joyful about life. Then when he himself kills a VC guerilla ...