Fallen Angels

A member of the squad, Monroe, receives a letter from his girlfriend in which she proposes to him. The squad takes a vote to decide whether Monroe should agree to marry her, and the squad votes in support of the marriage; Lobel warns, however, that it might be a good idea to wait until after they return home because the war has turned all of them into different people. Monroe promises to arrange the wedding so that it occurs after the last member of their squad returns home. Later, Perry is called into Captain Stewart’s office and asked if he can rewrite a letter that Lieutenant Gearhart had written to Turner’s family apologizing for his death. Perry reads the letter and decides to edit it to say that Turner died bravely, rather than to give them another thing to be upset about. Lieutenant Gearhart takes Turner’s loss very seriously and seems to step back from the lead a bit. Captain Stewart again exaggerates the number of Viet Cong soldiers killed on the previous mission in his official report.

Afterwards, Alpha Company is sent back to the village that they had tried to pacify a while back because the Viet Cong have been reported to be attacking the villagers. Perry’s squad arrives at a gruesome sight; the Viet Cong have already attacked the village. Many of the villagers have been mutilated and brutally murdered; their huts are set ablaze. Perry remembers the little girl that he had met before named An Linh and finds her standing with who he assumes is her grandmother. Perry goes to look for her mother, and he enters a hut where he is taken by surprise by a Viet Cong soldier. The enemy’s rifle misfires, saving Perry’s life, and the pair get into a physical altercation in which Perry shoots the Viet Cong soldier point blank in the face. Perry, terrified and overwhelmed, unloads his entire magazine on the dead Viet Cong soldier before he is pulled away from the body by Sergeant Simpson and comforted by Peewee.

Peewee sits Perry down, but he notices what he believes to be a “breathing hole” in the side of a mat. Perry and Peewee find an injured Viet Cong soldier hiding under the mat, and Captain Stewart kills him immediately. Alpha Company returns to camp while listening to the sound of artillery fire being rained down upon the village to kill any hiding Viet Cong soldiers. Back at camp, Peewee’s legs collapse under him as he tries to jump out of the helicopter. He is taken to the infirmary, but, as he states, there is nothing wrong with him. That night, neither Perry nor Peewee can sleep. Perry tells Peewee about what happened with the Viet Cong soldier in the hut and begins to cry. Peewee comes to lay with Perry in his bunk and holds him until they both fall asleep.

Alpha Company is then sent to a new base closer to the city of Tam Ky, which seems to be more heavily attacked by the enemy. On the morning that they are set to leave, Peewee wakes up with a swollen face. He reluctantly admits to Perry that he used some of the hair growth lotion that he had bought from An Linh’s mother a while back to grow a mustache.

Perry tries to write a letter to his younger brother about the war and fighting, but he is unsure of how to explain his thoughts and feelings about the Viet Cong soldier that he killed. Perry asks Peewee why he killed the Viet Cong soldier, and Peewee assures him that if he hadn’t killed the man, then he could be dead instead; Perry isn’t sure that that is a good enough reason. At their new base in Tam Ky, Perry’s squad notices the low quality of the camp and how the night patrols they go on have become increasingly dangerous. During one night patrol, Perry thinks briefly about the man whom he killed, but ultimately he forces himself to focus on staying silent and aware of his surroundings. The squad hides in the grass for several hours until they begin hearing the voices of Viet Cong soldiers. Lieutenant Gearhart orders them to remain silent and not fire their weapons. The squad is confused until they realize that there are several dozen Viet Cong soldiers walking around them and that they are dangerously outnumbered. The squad hides silently until the group of Viet Cong soldiers passes them. The squad realizes that Lieutenant Gearhart saved their lives. Under pressure from Captain Stewart, Sergeant Simpson extends his tour of duty by 30 days.

Action begins to pick up in the region, and Sergeant Simpson fights with Captain Stewart over the man’s decision to volunteer Alpha Company for missions wherever he can; Captain Stewart ignores Sergeant Simpson’s words. After a week of idleness, several squads—including Perry’s—are sent on a large-scale patrol. During the patrol, Perry’s squad enters a battle running uphill to fight several Viet Cong soldiers who have begun shooting at them from the ground. At the top of the hill, Perry dives to the floor as an artillery blast hits, and he finds that he is unable to stand. Perry sees Brew behind him bleeding from a compound fracture at the top of his leg. Perry realizes that he has been hit in the leg as he struggles to drag himself to Brew’s side. Perry is then hit in his wrist, and somebody grabs him by his collar, pulling him backward and twisting his leg; Perry wonders if he is going to die.

Perry and Brew are loaded into an evacuation helicopter as the medics frantically work to treat them. Concussed and overwhelmed, Perry attempts to make sense of the words and sounds he hears. Perry reaches over and holds Brew’s hand as they are both treated, and he notices that Brew’s hand is limp. Perry hears the medics stop working on Brew and tries to look at him; one of the medics blocks Perry from seeing Brew, but he hears the tell-tale sign of a body bag’s zipper being pulled closed. Perry is transferred to a recovery hospital in which he notices that life seems to be a lot more calm and ordinary. He speaks to some of the other soldiers there, listening to their stories, and reads to a soldier who was blinded named Joe Derby. Perry writes a letter to his mother and tries to joke about what happened; he doesn’t want her to know how scared he was.

One morning, Judy Duncan—the woman Perry met on the plane in Anchorage—wakes him up, and they discuss how things have been different than they thought they would be. Later a chaplain and a colonel come and speak to several of the recovering soldiers; they reward them with Purple Heart medals. Perry decides to send his medal to Kenny, writing to him that he would like to take him to different places when he gets home. Perry receives notice that he is being sent back to his unit and he considers running away and going AWOL (absent without leave). He doesn’t believe that he can go back into battle and is terrified of dying. He ends up on a plane returning to his squad regardless, contemplating how the marines with whom he flies seem so young and overconfident.

Perry returns to his squad just north of Tam Ky. He finds Peewee on the side of a hill and learns that Sergeant Simpson has gone home and that a new Sergeant, Sergeant Dongan, has taken his place. Peewee tells Perry that Sergeant Dongan consistently places the African American soldiers within the squad in the most dangerous positions on patrols; Peewee is placed on point and Johnson is moved to the rear even though he carries the M-60 machine gun for the squad. Johnson and Sergeant Dongan argue constantly about the decision to place Johnson in a volatile position. Johnson also struggles to accept the fact that Brew has died, instead choosing to believe that he has returned home. It rains for several days straight, and on the first day of clear weather, a chaplain comes and prays with the squad. He asks Perry about his reservations about praying, and Perry questions what security prayers really offer him. Lobel approaches Peewee and Perry to tell them that, if Sergeant Dongan continues his racist practices, he will be on their side and help them.

After a seemingly insignificant patrol, Perry receives mail from Peewee’s girlfriend and Kenny. Earlene, Peewee’s girlfriend, apologizes for marrying another man, and Perry decides not to show the letter to Peewee to spare his feelings. Kenny’s letter reports that he has gotten a part-time job and that a young man from their neighborhood, Johnny Robinson, has been killed in action in Vietnam. Perry is shocked because Johnny is younger than him.

On a rainy Tuesday, the squad’s Vietnamese allies find a woman and her two children walking near the camp. They violently interrogate her before some American soldiers intervene and bring her and the children to their camp. Most of the American soldiers treat the women and children kindly; Peewee rushes to create a doll out of grass for the children. When the woman hands one of her children to an American soldier, the child explodes in his arms, killing him. The American soldiers shoot the woman as she runs away from the camp, leaving her other child behind; the soldiers kill the other child as well. Peewee leaves the doll he made for the children in the mud and walks away silently.

Peewee is obviously impacted by the events that he witnessed earlier; the squad tries to comfort him, but he insists that he is not upset. In the morning, Johnson tells Perry about a conflict between a South Vietnamese Army colonel and Captain Stewart. Johnson says that Sergeant Dongan has continued to pose problems during Perry’s absence; Sergeant Dongan had approached Johnson to ask if Lobel was gay. Perry is thankful that Johnson seems to care deeply about his squad companions and that he is a natural leader. Tensions continue to rise between the South Vietnamese colonel and Captain Stewart as they argue about whose soldiers have to capture an important hill that may be riddled with Viet Cong.

Perry’s squad is sent to capture the hill. They climb the hill without any problems, but they are forced to return to camp to regroup. Now knowing that the hill is not as dangerous as they thought it would be, the South Vietnamese colonel wants his men to be the ones to capture the hill. As they climb the hill again and the Vietnamese soldiers take the lead, they are attacked. The attack causes many South Vietnamese soldiers to die and for the hill to be struck with napalm. The squad attempts to secure a nearby village to create an evacuation area, but they end up in a heavy fire fight during which Perry kills a soldier whom he thinks can’t be older than 16. During the fight, Sergeant Dongan is brutally killed.