Analysis: Psychological Turmoil Of The Fallen Angels

Psychological Turmoil of the Fallen Angels Fallen Angels was fast paced and never let the action die away for the reader, reflecting the experience of a soldier for whom time flew by as a million little tragedies took place. Though it was often difficult to keep up with Myers’ pace, as the events blurred into one another, the important scenes always hit hard enough to stop me in my tracks and force me to reread and reread. The most impactful was Perry’s account of the interaction between the native woman and soldiers from the company as she “stopped just before she reached the dikes and handed one of the kids to a guy from Charlie Company. The GI’s arms and legs flung apart from the impact of the blast” (231). I could not believe what I had just read could actually be true in any universe or how coolly the author had slid the detail in, as if such an atrocity was commonplace. Fallen Angels made me question humanity and how people are warped by war, as well as the measures that they take to keep themselves from going off the rails. …show more content…
Meyers’ seems to keep changing Perry’s mind to show us that though our reasons for war my start out noble, that right and wrong become blurred when you are in the thick of it. He incorporated the radio takes with President Johnson discussing the war and a chaplain telling them how important their contributions were in “defending the freedom of Americans and of the South Vietnamese” and how their “acts of heroism and courage are celebrations of life” (215). These voices stand out starkly against what Perry is observing of the war, which shows us how different the knowledge was that people back in the U.S. were receiving as opposed to what the soldiers knew was