Fallen Angels Character List
Richie Perry - The narrator and protagonist. Richie is a seventeen-year-old
high school graduate from Harlem. Though he is smart and ambitious, his
alcoholic single mother cannot afford to send him to college, so he joins the
army to escape an uncertain future. Richie is sent to Vietnam, and during his
months there, he suffers numerous harrowing combat experiences and tries to
grapple with the meaning of war, heroism, and good and evil.
Kenny - Richie’s younger brother. Kenny depends on his older brother, who
acts as a father figure to him and enlists in Vietnam in part to help support
him. Yet Richie seems to need Kenny just as much as Kenny needs him. Kenny’s
dependence on Richie and his admiration and love for him act as Richie’s only
solid link to the civilian world during the war and provide him with his only
sense of purpose.
Mother - Richie’s mother, a depressive alcoholic who has barely functioned
since her husband left her years earlier. Though Richie and his mother have
never gotten along well, they realize how much they need each other while
Richie is in Vietnam. They try to repair their damaged relationship through
their letters.
Harold “Peewee” Gates - Richie’s closest friend in Vietnam. Peewee copes
with the fear and uncertainty of the war with comical bravado, though he
occasionally allows his true emotions to peek through the bluster.
Lobel - A member of Richie’s squad. Jewish and possibly homosexual, Lobel is
the target of prejudice nearly as frequently as the black soldiers, to whom
he pledges his support in racial skirmishes. Lobel is a devoted fan of the
movies, and he distances himself from the horror of battle by imagining that
he is merely playing a role in a war film.
Monaco - A soldier of Italian descent on Richie’s squad. Monaco seems
slightly braver than the rest, always taking the dangerous position of point
man.
Captain Stewart - The commander of Richie’s company. Captain Stewart wants
to be promoted to major, but his company needs to accrue a higher enemy body
count for him to earn the promotion. He sends Richie’s company on numerous
dangerous missions, risking the lives of the soldiers under his command for
the sake of his own ambition.
Sergeant Simpson - The leader of Richie’s squad. When Richie first arrives
in Vietnam, Sergeant Simpson is near the end of his tour of duty. He warns
Richie and the other new soldiers not to get him killed because of their
inexperience. Later, under great pressure from Stewart, Simpson extends his
tour by thirty days, but he survives and returns home, just as he wished.
Lieutenant Carroll - The leader of Richie’s platoon. A smart and sympathetic
leader, Lieutenant Carroll is well-liked by the men under his command, and
his death during combat leaves them all grief-stricken.
Lieutenant Gearhart - The inexperienced leader of Richie’s platoon after
Lieutenant Carroll’s death.
Brew - A devoutly religious solider in Richie’s squad. Brew plans to join
the ministry upon his return to civilian life.
Corporal Brunner - An ambitious soldier on Richie’s squad. A bully, Corporal
Brunner constantly kisses up to soldiers of higher rank, while abusing those
below him.
Sergeant Dongan - An officer who replaces Simpson as the leader of Richie’s
squad. Sergeant Dongan is a racist and always places black soldiers in the
most dangerous positions during patrols.
Judy Duncan - An army nurse Richie meets during the trip to Vietnam. Though
Richie sees Judy only once more before learning of her death, she serves as
the closest thing to a love interest in the novel, and she is a source of
confusion and tame fantasy for Richie.
Earlene - Peewee’s girlfriend. Not long after Peewee arrives in Vietnam,
Earlene writes him a letter, informing him that she married another man in
his absence. She symbolizes how war disrupts domestic affairs.
Jamal - A medic in Richie’s company.
Jenkins - A member of Richie’s squad who arrives in Vietnam at the same time
as Richie.
Johnson - An extraordinarily strong black soldier on Richie’s squad who
proves himself to be a born leader.
Johnny Robinson - A boy from Richie’s neighborhood in Harlem who is killed
in Vietnam.
Turner - A soldier briefly on Richie’s squad.
Walowick - A slightly racist soldier on Richie’s squad who appears to
overcome his prejudices as the bond among the squad members deepens.
Who said the following quotes?
•“I ain’t got but one hundred and twenty days over left over here.
If we go to Hawaii, then I ain’t got that. Now I ain’t about to let neither
one of you fools kill me, you hear?”
•“I looked at him and he was crying. I made a note to tell Simpson. If he was
that shaky, he was going to get us all killed.”
•“Vietnam? I must have got off on the wrong stop, I thought this was St. Louis!”
•“Yeah, I prayed a lot. But, man, I didn’t pray nowhere near as hard."
•“I’d be real nervous too, except I know none of this is real and I’m just
playing a part.”
•“I wouldn’t have joined the army if I had seen anything else to do. When I
figured I couldn’t afford college, I just didn’t want to be in Harlem anymore”
•“Look, I just found out that the nurses are going right to Chu Lai. I just
wanted to wish you luck.”
•“I don’t have doubts about God. I’m just not that sure who I am anymore.”
“That man bucking for major real bad, he going to get someone killed before he
makes it.”
•“He signed for the M-60, took it by the handle, and walked away without even
looking at it. They fit each other."
•“He wrote three letters to his wife. He gave one to me, one to Walowick, and
he kept one.”
•“He was the bridge between me and Mama, and I liked him for that.”
•“Ok. All you guys are invited to the wedding. I’ll plan it so that the
wedding will be when the last guy in the squad leaves Nam.”
•“My father’s a colonel, he wanted me to be infantry. He’s got this thing, he
calls it a game plan.”
• “We listened to him talk about how hard things had been in the Korean War
and how tough the Koreans had been.”
•“My plans, maybe just my dreams really, had been to go to college, and to
write. . . . All the other guys in the neighborhood thought I was going to
college.
•“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.”
•“You ain’t killed nobody yet. They gots to be people before you can kill
them. You think these Congs is people?”
•“I didn’t say nothing… A man is Nam is fighting by my side is a man fighting
by my side. I don’t care what he doing in bed.”
Which theme do the following quotes represent:
1. In Chapter 4 Jenkins is killed by the land mine. This event represents all
of the following themes EXCEPT
a. Randomness of War
b. Unromantic Reality of War
c. Loss of Innocence
d. Disparity Between the War and the “World”
2. The quote, “I don’t have doubts about God, I’m just not sure who I am
anymore,” represents which of the following themes?
a. Randomness of War
b. Unromantic Reality of War
c. Loss of Innocence
d. Disparity Between the War and the “World”
3. The quote, “The real question was what I was doing, what any of us were
doing, in Nam,” represents which of the following quotes?
a. Randomness of War
b. Meaning of War
c. Loss of Innocence
d. Unity in Adversity
4. “Then there was this big thing about the Super Bowl and if the Packers had
a dynasty going. It wasn’t real that people were thinking about things like
that when all of this stuff was going on. It just wasn’t real.”
a. Disparity Between the War and the World
b. Randomness of War
c. Loss of Innocence
d. Unity in Adversity
5. “I started crying, and Peewee got up and came to my bunk. He put his arms
around me and held me until we both fell asleep.”
a. Disparity Between the War and the World
b. Unity in Adversity
c. Loss of Innocence
d. Randomness of War
6. “The woman’s other child stood for a long moment, knee deep in water and
mud, before it, too, was gunned down.”
a. Disparity between the war and the World
b. Randomness of War
c. Unity in Adversity
d. Unromantic Reality of War
