Reader Response #4

The following passage in Fallen Angels made me start to think more about the way the war was affecting the soldiers. “The plane was full of marines, fresh from Camp LeJeune. They were tough, full of themselves. They seemed so young. They kidded back and forth amoung themselves. They had weapons. Some of them looked at me, and some asked me questions. Had I been in country long? Had I seen any action? They were itching to get into combat. I had been in the country four months. I hadn’t seen a lot of action, but enough. Lord knows it was enough.” (Page 217)

Fallen Angels shows the difference in how the younger, new soldiers were compared to Perry. I can understand why Perry says that the little bit of action he’d seen was enough. I find it ironic that the new soldiers are so lively, because eventually they’ll end up like Perry. Perry was like them in the beginning of the book, but slowly started to show the effects of the war in his moods, talk, and thinking. Perry seems more depressed, or lacking life as the book progressed. The way the new soldiers act is what I would expect from soldiers that haven’t been in combat before. I can only ask, why the marines don’t realize the horrors that awaited them in the war?

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