Drew Barth

Sorrow

Authors Note: This is a point of view piece on the book Fallen Angels.  

How would you feel if you were in the Vietnam War just so you could support your family back home? Well in the book Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers Perry a seven-teen year-old boy has to go to war to help his mom and his brother through the rough times. He soon finds that war is awful and wishes he could be back home.The way he tells the story makes us feel sorrow and sadness. He also struggles to tell the reader the full story because of his fear of war.

When Perry writes letters to his brother back home he refuses to tell him what goes on in this war. He does this so much that he forgets the truth himself so you never know if he is telling the real story or not. Perry's friend Pewee writes his girlfriend and always tells her the truth so if she knows what it is like she will understand what happened if anything would go wrong. Perry is just way to afraid of the things he has seen so he never wants to share these events with anyone even the reader.

Even though knowing how Perry deals with his problems is important, knowing how he talks to his unit has the same importance. Perry is always talking with his group of friends in his camp but never will repeat what has happened when they are out on patrol. He locks up during war and after he keeps all his feelings to himself. I think that he should share his feelings with someone so he doesn’t have all those feeling locked up in him. Perry says “I knew Mama loved me, but I also knew when I got back, she would expect me to be the same person, but it could never happen. She hadn’t been to Nam. She hadn’t given her poncho to anybody to wrap a body in, or stepped over a dying kid.” This is an example of him holding feelings in without people knowing what actually happened to him. He wants us to know that people will never understand what happens in Nam unless you have been there.

While he is out on patrol a lot of bad things happen to his unit. He freezes up in these situations which make his point of view change throughout the book because he doesn’t what to reveal what goes on in war. Perry says “We spent another day lying around. It seemed to be what the war was about. Hours of boredom, seconds of terror.” This line shows us how much war frightens him and how he can change the way the story goes because of this and just those seconds of terror scare him so much he doesn’t tell the story truthfully.  
Even though knowing how sorrow and sadness is important, knowing how Pewee Perry's friend would tell it and the mood he would bring to the story has the same importance. Pewee is a fun guy who doesn't really care about anything. He is very open minded and war doesn't affect him much. He would tell the story just like it is so he could give the reader a better story. Unlike Perry he likes the adventures and the thrill so he would include all these things in the story. He would probably add more violence to his story to make his story look better. Instead of feeling sorrow and sadness from Perry's point of view Pewee's mood would be happy and adventurous. This is the differences between Perry and Pewee and how they would tell the story.

As you can see Perry shows us that he consistently changes the point of view in this book because of his fear of war.  Perry Says “My father used to call all soldiers angel warriors,” he said. “Because usually they get boys to fight wars. Most of you aren’t old enough to vote yet.” This is another reason Perry might not have been ready for the war he is only seven-teen. He doesn't tell the reader the full story because of his awareness of war.