Fallen Angels


Myers, Walter Dean


Used in the Blue Valley Communication Arts classes


This extremely graphic novel is a story about a group of young Army recruits in Vietnam. It centers around a black man from Harlem, Richie Perry, and how his opinion of the war is quickly changed. He initially believes that he won’t be there long and won’t have to actually fight because of a medical issue. After witnessing intense and repeated brutality and destruction he doubts the “morality” of the war and decides it’s not possible to define the line between good and evil.

If this book was selected by Blue Valley school staff to teach children about the Vietnam War, it was a poor choice. Yes, “war IS hell.” But why not select one of the dozens of well-written books about the Vietnam War written by someone who was actually there? Walter Dean Myers did not serve in Vietnam. It’s difficult to believe that there is not a more suitable book available that 1) shows the perspective of an actual soldier or medical person (whether a minority or not) and 2) does not use pervasive vulgarity. One of the purposes of Communication Arts is to teach kids correct grammar and vocabulary. Does this book expand their minds and vocabularies in an educationally sound way?

Furthermore, together with The Things They Carried these two books promote one narrow opinion about the Viet Nam War, and they promote this opinion in the same vulgar manner.

It’s alarming to consider the effect this book could have on a child with unidentified psychological issues.


Excerpts:

- “cut a baby’s head off.. How the hell do you kill a friggin’ baby?.. Like a trip to friggin’ hell.. protect your ass from muggers and shit.. protect your ass.. started firing the [rifle] in his face. I emptied the clip. I snatched another one.. was no face. Just an angry mass of red flesh.. eyeball dangled from one side of the head.. masses of different-colored flesh. The white parts were the worst. .. tooth, a bit of skull. I vomited.”

- - “..asshole for bringing his wife and kid to Nam.. What the fuck.. asked W. if he had been having intimate relations with.. a snake or lizard.. Go fuck yourself!.. try to have sex with a Vietnamese girl before we got back to the states.. Bullshit.. Don’t mean shit.. What the fuck.. need his ass kicked.. fucking chopper.. Asshole.. frag your ass.. fucking medic.. Light shit.. kick your LT’s ass.. Oh, shit.. love the shit out of her.. bodies lying all around, the smell of blood and puke and urine.

- “..catch a social disease.. rot your twinkie off.”

- “..no grab-ass.. You faggots can’t even line up.. did this peckerwood just call me ‘boy’?.. chickenshit to go through.. Lousy-ass chip beef... smoke from Saigon, and we all got stoned.. No shit?.. figure out how to shit.. wake the fuck up!.. across the fucking road..”

- “..fag solution, only capable of coming from the mind of a fag.. just because I don’t have my serial number tattoed on my genitals does not mean I’m a fag. You wouldn’t have room for more than 3 numbers anyway..”

- “..when you say ‘gooks’ it sounds like ‘nigger’ to me. ..shut that shit up,..”

- “..damn roast beef.. put a hole in your ass for every slice.. I see.”

- “..dumb fucker.. Simple-ass.. I know [a prayer].. Flying into combat, ‘bout to have a fit, Lord, if you listenin’, please get me out of this shit!”

- “..shithead!.. fucking hero..”

- “..I’ll be 20.. and I’m still a virgin.. noble flicks about interracial love, and they kill you off at the end so they can show it in Georgia. Shit.”

- “What the fuck’s a cootie?.. like calling me a nigger... Two-Timing Slut...”

- “..just shot the shit out of [our guys]”

- “..run this shit over.. get your ass in gear.. fucking kid!.. fucking kid!.. fucking soldier, but you're a fucking kid.. hell with L. ..Who the hell.. little fuckers.. joined the friggin’ army.. so he would stop thinking I was a faggot.. fucking trained for.. fucking trained for..”

- “kept shooting at the bodies even though they were already dead.. What the fuck happened?.. What we hadn’t done to the village [the chopper] did. It leveled the huts.. mostly women and old men, running for their lives. Few of them made it more than a few feet as the chopper guns swept everything..”

- “..fucking each other up.. same shit.. Tortured? They tie them to trees and pull their guts out.. just leave them there.. found them.. still alive and begging for somebody to kill them.”

- “2 VC came out.. hands up.. woman from the village.. stabbed one in the side of the head. He tried to get the knife away from her and 2 guys lit him up. His body jerked around like rag puppet being dragged by a dog.”

- “Get the fuck away.. shit going on.. crazy-ass.. What the fuck.. sticks.. covered with shit, either human or animal shit, so when they stuck you, you got infected.. scared shit.. off the fucking hill.. How the fuck you doing?.. fucking rain and mud.. shitting in this shit.. needed a grenade up his ass.. P. opened his pants and told him to check his crotch.. niggers of this outfit.. watch on our asses.. faggot.. Fuck you, P. .There you go with them promises again.. black ass.. What the fuck.. kill his ass twice.. “

- “..caught woman with 2 children.. started slapping her around.. let her go.. followed her to edge of camp.. handed one of the kids to a guy.. arms and legs flung apart.. damn kid had been mined, had exploded in his arms.. woman running across the paddy.. fold backward as the automatic fire ripped her nearly apart. I saw part of her body move in one direction, and her legs in another.. woman’s other child.. was gunned down.”

- “L’s a faggot.. even ask me if he was a faggot.. talk that shit... don’t care what he doing in bed.”

- “..this shit.. What the fuck’s.. Shit.. fucking weapon.. still pissing your pants when I was kicking ass.. ain’t no fucking war.. shit.. Shit.. “

- “Do something for him!.. He your friend? Yeah.. Then you do it.. [we] stood and walked out. A moment later we heard the shot. We went back in and piled the bodies back up on the guy.. got a flame thrower and we moved away from the hut. the smell of burning flesh came quickly.”

- “We fired at them, and fired at them, and fired at them. Bodies once alive, then lifeless, seemed to live again as the bullets tore into the dead flesh and made it dance.. A Cong.. was lying on top of a pile of bodies.. chest and stomach were open.. tubes and organs and the redness of working parts that no longer worked.. I looked. It was a soldier.. bottom of one leg was off.. flesh from the thigh was off too. The white twisted bone angled out oddly from the hip. His eyes were open.. the teeth bared.. hands were around the neck of a NVA soldier.. The GI had killed him from the other side of death”

- “What the fuck.. What the fuck.. lay this shit on.. the shit was right.. all that shit.. shit like that.. know that shit.. Fucking A.. grenade up your butt..”

- “dudes collecting ears from dead Congs and wearing them around their necks.. nothing to mess with a Cong once he dead.. cut the mother’s ears off while he still alive and kicking-then you doing something.. let some of these carbon tet fumes out before we’re all high..”

- “..was a splash and a figure. It looked.. as if he were standing in the water, masturbating.. J. opened up and blew him away. Reeds! M. shouted. They’re in the water... shit was real.. Keep your asses down.. Where the fuck’s the fire coming from.. keep quiet and shoot the shit out of anything that comes near us.. backing into a Cong spider hole.. Bullshit it was cool... I got to shit... We were both just a glance from dying, and he had to shit and it was just so damn funny.. The Cong was dead...

- The smell of death filled our small grave.. (the) body growled and let off gases.. He was a damned kid.. ”