Character Sketch Essay

Billy 

Aquas

1-13-2011

A Changed Fighter

            Richie Perry was a young Vietnam fighting man from New York, and one of the main characters in “Fallen Angels” by: Walter Dean Myers. He just recently came into Vietnam around when a lot of the fighting started to cool down and thoughts of leaving soon were thrown around by everyone. Within his first few days in Nam, he met four other soldiers; he met Lobel, Johnson, Brunner, and Peewee. These five, young soldiers became pretty close in their time in the war because they were assigned to all the same groups. Peewee was probably the closest friend to Perry since he arrived in Vietnam. Richie came into Vietnam thinking he was “A middle of the road kind of guy, not too brave, but not too scared, either” (Myers 50) but after the time he spent at Vietnam, he thinks he couldn’t have been more wrong.

            Perry wasn’t really described in this novel other than when Peewee said “Perry is from New York, and he sure ain’t white.” (58). But being a fighter in Vietnam, he is obviously very courageous for putting his life on the line for his country. Also it seems like Perry is very focused on what he has to do because when he was on guard duty the other guy fell asleep and didn’t really mind what happened, but Perry on the other hand, was on complete watch.

            During Perry’s time in Vietnam, a lot was thrown around about how the war was almost over and how peace treaties were being written, but even so he saw things that would change someone forever. While patrolling through an area in Vietnam with Perry’s squad, one of Perry’s friends, Jenkins, stepped on a land mine shooting shards of metal into his body and killing him. Jenkins had his final breath of life while looking into the eyes of Perry and what happened on this fateful afternoon is one of the many things that changed Perry forever. “There were bubbles on the wound as he struggled for a final breath, and then that, too, stopped” (41). Also another thing Perry saw in Nam was when him and a few other soldiers went out with a camera crew and shot down a Vietnamese native, that’s not what got him the most, it was seeing him sprawled out in the mud, dead. Walowick asked, “Seeing that dead gook mess you up some?” and Perry answered, “A little. Maybe even more then Jenkins.” (85)

            Throughout the book, everything that Perry went through changed him drastically. In the beginning of the novel he was a nervous wreck going into any type of battle or patrol, and you’d think after seeing what happened to Jenkins and the Vietnamese soldier this would be truer, but now he is a strong fighter. He turned into that hardened fighter that you picture when you think of the military and he didn’t make stupid mistakes anymore like forgetting to load his gun, because he knew this war was as real as it was going to get. “Move it out! Move it out! We’ll get pinned here!” Perry saying this shows that he is turning into a leader in the military and his squad and it shows his transformation from the scared new soldier into the hardened leader.

            When Perry changes in the story it changes everything that happens around him during the war in Vietnam. In “Fallen Angels” by Walter Dean Myers, Perry said he was a “Middle of the road kind of guy, not too brave, but not too scared, either.” But he couldn’t have been more wrong about that, because seeing things that he saw will change a man and make him stronger than he ever thought possible.