Fallen Angels Global Issue Essay
In the book, Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Meyers, Richard Perry joins the United States army during the Vietnam war. Perry makes it to Vietnam and meets many new people with whom he grows closer and closer with every day. Perry sees lots of death throughout his time in the war and it gives the reader a good perspective of how gruesome and traumatic serving in a war can be and how seeing that much death and violence can affect a soldier. Perry watches as some of the people he served alongside die right in front of him and this scares him as he continues to think that he could be next. By the end of the book, most of the squad he fought with had either been killed in the fighting or gotten injured and sent home. Fallen Angels can be
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I didn’t want it to be real, this much death, this much dying, this waste of human life. I didn’t want it. I looked around until I found Monaco. There were tears in his eyes, but his mouth was twisted in hate and anguish and confusion. I turned away from Monaco’s pain. It wasn’t the time for comforting each other. The heat from the burning huts was intense; the shimmering air created phantom figures all around us”(177). During the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian civilians have been experiencing similar destruction by Russian forces. As of October 6th of 2022, 1.2 million families have reported their homes either damaged or destroyed by Russian destruction. Over 14 million Ukrainians have been forced to leave their home due to these unsafe environments. The attacks destroying these innocent civilian homes can damage and destroy more than 72 apartments in one attack. These attacks put the Ukrainian civilians and the Vietnamese villagers in the same dangerous
Could you imagine living in a place that was under constant warfare? This was the reality author Rawan Yaghi wrote of in her personal narrative From Beneath. In the article What’s the Environmental Impact of War by Karl Mathiesen he uses facts and statistics to inform readers of the extreme negative effects war has on the environment. In the personal narrative, From Benath by Rawan Yaghi, she writes about her first time experiencing a bombing while living in the Gaza strip a Palestinian territory that experiences violence due to the war between Isreal and Palestine.
In the beginning of the novel, Perry was an uncertain teen who didn’t know where his place in life was “The real question was what I was doing, what any of us were doing, in Nam” (69). By the middle of the book, Perry started to become doubtful of himself and started to say Jenkins and Carroll died because of him “In a way i felt real bad just for being alive to write it” (110). And by the last few chapters he really starts to lose his way and lose his judgement from right and wrong “Maybe when we all got back to the world and everybody thought we were heroes for winning it, then it would seem right from there” (229). During my reading of Fallen Angels, I began to notice the theme, and I think the theme is that War is devastating to people because it can totally mess you up psychologically and physically.
In the novel Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers, the main character is Richard Perry. In the beginning of this book, Richard was a generous and eager to start as a soldier in the Vietnam War. He soon becomes responsible and understanding of what it is like to be a black soldier in the war and how hard it can be to the other soldiers. Near the end, Richard becomes powerful and alerted near the end of the book. This character clearly relates to the theme of the book, which is age and race can impact somebody’s life a lot.
Not only are the soldiers affected by war, but regular civilians living at home are as well. Many people feel that soldiers show absolutely no emotion and are extraordinary people. However, in “Imagine Dying” written by Rick Loomis, the author proves his audience wrong when he states “here was a group of men, 37 in all, whom [he] viewed as courageous warriors, well-trained and well-equipped, and they seemed to be falling one by one right in front of him” (3). Although the majority of a population feel soldiers are extremely brave and are seldom afraid of their circumstances, this is untrue. Loomis spent a long period of time with a group of soldiers and came to the conclusion they are everyday, ordinary people simply fulfilling the role of
The novel Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers , is a war novel. There are many themes prevalent in this novel. One of the themes present in this novel is the boredom and fear during the war. As well as how rank in the war affected men's actions. A big theme in this novel would concern the title Fallen Angels connecting itself to the fallen soldiers.
People back home were naive to the actions that were being taken in Vietnam because they were lacking in communication. In the novel “Fallen Angels” you can tell that the soldiers were very timid with what they said in their letters that were sent back home. Most letters sent back home were about the little things that brought them joy like playing games with kids. Not many actually said they went into battle or fought in a bullet parade. They would ask them what it's really like over there because they could see what was happening on TV, but media blocked a lot of reality from the war and the graphic effects.
War, Belief and Emotion People comprehend war very differently; they either hate it, understand it, or love it; there are many literary works with stories depicting these points of view. In 1990, author Tim O’Brien described his view of war with his “work of fiction” The Things They Carried, a book supposedly based on his experiences in the Vietnam War. His descriptive and emotional work richly depicts the feelings and activities of several drafted soldiers in the Vietnam War. Twenty-two years later and based on an entirely different war, came American Sniper, the memoir of a sniper in the Iraq War, by Chris Kyle. Kyle’s proud and rhapsodizing work depicts his strong supportive feelings for the war and what he did there.
War can have great outcomes, such as gaining allies, land, money, but the lives lost and families torn apart can
Madelyn Smith Ms.Reid English 11 Law 25 April, 2023 The Vietnam War was a horrifyingly gruesome and deadly altercation in which America sent hundreds of thousands of kids to fight in a grown man's war. Close to 60,000 American soldiers and 250,000 Vietnamese soldiers were killed in this fight of nonsense, in which the lives of innocent civilians and soldiers alike were taken, all while making no political progress. In the historical fiction, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien presents stories that show how the soldiers cope with the war, in order to depict the trauma and horror they experienced, ultimately illustrating that the soldiers who went to Vietnam lived through horrid battles and show their fear of uncertainties through their
By attaching stories to deaths, and names to the faces of soldiers who otherwise would be just another killed in action, the real experiences of what it was to be a soldier in Vietnam come to life in ways cold hard facts and reality cannot. O’Brien’s book is not about war. It’s about the people who lived through the terror of being in Vietnam. As O’Brien writes “It’s about love and memory. It's about sorrow”(81).
Lust for Blood By having the ability to control oneself and their particular desires in different situations, it can conflict with their appearance. In the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, Count Dracula is conflicted between the ability to control himself in his emotions and desires while having to keep his own idea of his abilities, appearances, and personality. As Dracula is put through multiple situations where he can no longer restrain himself is then put to show his true image of himself. Although Dracula tries to limit himself his self-image conflicts with his self control leading to him becoming a bloodthirsty vampire. On the way to Count Dracula’s castle there are noticeable factors that are portrayed.
There are times when even the soldiers, marked by society as fearless, “cover their heads and sa[y] Dear Jesus … and cringe and sob and beg for the noise to stop” (18). In part, this fear stems from the instantaneity of death. One moment, a soldier could be lightheartedly joking with friends, while the next, he or she could be on the ground, lifeless. Kiowa describes Ted Lavender’s sudden death as “Boom-down … Like cement” (6).
In a desperate attempt for peace, as ironic as it may be, we create chaos, resulting in the death of millions at a time. Firearms burn bright in the dim sun, exposing the vibrancy of blood-stained suits. As the bullets penetrate skin, the life of another innocent individual has already been lost. Families never to hear a last, “I love you” before their loved one tragically passes in a loud, chaotic mess. They run towards the danger, knowing exactly what result the soldiers might have gotten in the gamble of life or death.
In Jane Brody’s alarming article, “War Wounds That Time Alone Can’t Heal” Brody describes the intense and devastating pain some soldiers go through on a daily basis. These soldiers come home from a tragic time during war or, have vivid memories of unimaginable sufferings they began to experience in the battle field. As a result these soldiers suffer from, “emotional agony and self-destructive aftermath of moral injury…” (Brody). Moral injury has caused much emotional and physical pain for men and women from the war.
In the poem, “What Every Soldier Should Know”, Brian Turner, details the ever-present threat of death in a war zone. This poem expesses not only the terror of the American soldiers, but also exemplifies the emotions that the Middle Eastern soldiers feel towards the American soldiers. The soldiers are experiencing death, chaos, and disorder, but for some of the middle eastern people, they experience that every day. A lot of Middle Eastern people are normal people, defending their home land, their family, and their country.