Fallen Angels
You are 17 years old in 1967 and your single mother does not have enough money to send you to college. So, you decide to enlist in the army. In Vietnam, you meet some amazing leaders and some not very much. There different methods and styles of leadership help you so much, but they also put you and the rest of the soldiers in danger. Through the characters of Johnson, Carroll, and Dongan, Myers novel suggests that the different methods and styles of leadership affect the men severely under their leadership.
Johnson’s styles of command helped his men during their time of need. Johnson, an African American man, is very offended when he heard Brunner calling the VC, gooks. Johnson was very offended because Brunner was making it sound that he was making racist comments. He stoodup to anyone who sounded racist. Johnson loved all his soldiers and it was extremely hard for him when someone died, like Brew. “Johnson didn’t want to deal with Brew being dead”(Myers 222). Richie describes how Johnson hated when one of his close companions died and he could not do anything about it. Johnson respected and treasured all of his soldiers and did not care who or what they like. “He said, A man in Nam fighting by my side is a man fighting by my side. I don’t care what he’s doing in bed”(235). Everyone meant the same to Johnson. Everyone had the same dream to get out of Vietnam and it did not matter to Johnson who you
Nebrat 2 like. He just wanted you to live. During the story,
Response 1-A2: The main character changed in a couple ways throughout the duration of the novel with his thoughts towards being in Vietnam, his relationships with the people around him and his experiences as a soldier. Richies attitude towards this started to stop and Richie started to deal with it. Also, Richies relationships with fellow soldiers grew and tore apart as the events of the story were laid out. For instance, Richie and Peewees relationship grew closer together as the story went on because they went through everything together even in the end when they are close to death. Furthermore, Richies experiences are some that will that will change a person and harden them if they were put into the same situations, forced to do the same things.
The Killer Angels is a very interesting and intriguing novel about The Civil War and gives us day by day actions through out it all. That is what really interested me in the way this book was set up. Every day, there was a diary from different characters. Because of this, we get to see different views from different characters and how each one of them have their own stories in the war and how they got through the war. At the very beginning of the story, we meet a spy named Harrison, who loves his Shakespeare. He sees that the Union Army is coming, because he sees about twenty thousand men all at once. He is so scared and surprises and runs to tell the two generals, General Longstreet and General Lee. This is our introduction to the character I will talk about
He is described as this huge man that holds the M-60 and stands there with his mouth wide open. He has Southern accent and talked really slow which was odd to the others. He always seemed to keep to himself. As the novel progresses, Johnson proves himself to be a great leader and “war-hero”. After Lt. Carroll died, no one really trusted Captain Stewart because they found out he reported fake body count numbers so they all turned to Johnson during their missions. When Dongan asks him about Lobel’s sexuality, and he replies with no answer, he surprises Perry and is then known for being a born leader to fight in war. Johnson had taken a role that fit him like a glove. This role was a true hero. He soon was known as a leader and a great one in fact. Johnson was ready to die in the war he had thought he would die as a hero and for a good cause. At the end of the novel Johnson lives but is not sent home.
The movie “Twelve O’ Clock High” is a case study in the application of leadership theory during World War Two. Gregory Peck portrays Brigadier General Savage, a United States Army Air Force officer thrust into a situation that requires a maximum effort both on the ground and in the air as he attempts to re-invigorate an undisciplined, anxiety ridden, and ineffective combat unit. Throughout the movie we observe Peck’s character employing a variety of leadership methods, but ultimately discovering that true combat effectiveness and cohesion is accomplished through a
The book Black Hearts opened my eyes to how leadership from a single Officer can have a grappling effect on such a wide range of soldiers from the lowest of ranks. One of the best takeaways from Black Hearts is to never do anything: illegal, unethical, or immoral. Although this is a easy statement to repeat, Black Hearts demonstrates the difficulties that lie behind these words. It has also painted a picture of how leadership can topple extremely quickly from a top down view. The Army is portrayed in a bad light throughout the book relentlessly. This is due to the concentration of poor leadership of the 1-502nd Regiment (Referred to as “First Strike”), a battalion of the 101st Airborne Division.
“Fallen Angels”, written by Walter Dean Myers, is a novel that tells about the story of young boys going into battle during the Vietnam War. There are many themes in “Fallen Angels” but the main theme is the loss of innocence. The title makes reference to these themes. And the boys in the book have dreams of losing their virginity and drinking alcohol for the first time. They are thrown into a harsh reality when they are shown the trials of war. In the end, they understand that the movies that depict heroicness and honor are just images of a false idea; that war is full of chaos and horror.
In the novel Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers, true heroism is shown throughout many events in the story. One of the many characters in the book, Lt. Carroll, was said to show heroism before the main character, Richie Perry, came to the war. Another example of heroism by Lt. Carroll is when he was trying to lead his squad to safety but ended up getting hit himself. The third way Myers showed heroism is when Monaco, one of the squad members, was captured by the enemy and Richie and Peewee, another one of the squad members, saved him.
The killer angels is a world acclaimed novel that was written by an author known as Michael Shaara. In the year 1975, it was granted the Pulitzer Prize for creative writing. It gives us in details the occurrences of the four days in the Battle of Gettysburg. This was during the American Civil War that occurred in the year 1863. At this time, troops that comprised of both the Union and Confederacy were at war in town called Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. This is a piece of story that is driven by disposition and narrated from the point of view of various heroes (Hartwig, 1996).
Wars have been fought for many different reasons through the years, and that holds true for the American Civil War (1861-1865). In Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Killer Angels, the reasons for fighting the war are brought about through the officers and soldiers at a famous battle site of the Civil War, Gettysburg. Gettysburg was one of the most documented battles of the whole war. It took place over a span of three days and can be viewed as a turning point from Confederate prominence to Confederate demise. As in any conflict, there are two sides to the story. The Union and the Confederacy each had their own views as to why they were fighting the war. Victors write the history so too often only the Union side is
The Medal of Honor is a very prestigious award to receive. The Medal of Honor is the highest U.S. military decoration for heroism. In Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers, heroism is shown vastly among the characters. Heroism is described as great bravery. Perry, Peewee, and Lieutenant showed the most heroism in and off of the field.
Walter Dean Myers historical novel, Fallen Angels takes place in Vietnam during the war. The main character Perry, recently enlisted in the army, to fight in the Vietnam war. Perry could not afford to go to college because of his rough childhood in Harlem, also growing up with no dad. He faces many problems throughout war even when he is homesick for his family in the beginning. One of the closest warriors and his bestfriend he finds in the army is Peewee a very experienced veteran who is a great leader. Perry and his fellow warriors have to fend off the Vietnamese and use determination to win the war. The theme expressed in this story is that personal experiences enable people to mature.
This chapter covers the transition of Mary Anne Bell, of how she changed from being a normal, sweet teenage girl to being one of the Green Berets, filled with enthusiasm for the war and intrigued with the culture of Vietnam. This message is about how the innocence of women is consumed by the war and how once they begin to learn more about it, they are hopelessly entranced by it, far from returning to their usual selves. Rat talks about how, “Anne made you think about those girls back home, how they'll never understand any of this, not in a billion years. Try and tell them about it, they’ll just stare at you with those big round candy eyes. They won't understand zip.”(O’Brien 108), and this shows that women won’t understand what Vietnam really is like, they have to experience it themselves. Women also won’t understand the grueling mental pain that soldiers experience in the war.
“The Things They Carried,” written by Tim O’Brien, is a powerful short story regarding the Vietnam war. The author’s personal involvement with the army as an infantryman through the Vietnam war allows for the text to include realistic detail regarding a deployment. Although much of the story itself is simply describing what soldiers carried, relating back to the title, it also tells the story of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, an officer, leading his men through marching from village to village. Through the story, Cross realizes what true leadership requires, but only after losing one of his men due to his lack of strong leadership. The text conveys that leadership is to lead others no matter the consequences and by disregarding love; O’Brien does this b y showing how love negatively impacted Cross, what possible consequences of strict leadership are, and the weight that a leader must carry.
“No way they overran the squad. No way. You didn’t overrun Johnson. Johnson was the man. Johnson would kick some ass.
James Webb focuses on three main characters in his novel: Robert E. Lee Hodges, “Snake,” and Will “Senator” Goodrich. The inspiration for these three characters seems to be not the life of any particular historical figure, but rather the common backgrounds of real soldiers who served in Vietnam in general. Characters in the novel are most often developed only after their initial introduction into the story. After introducing a character to the reader, Webb will often follow this introduction with the story of the characters life before the military and how or why he decided to enlist. Those characteristics not mentioned at his introduction or those that change are typically revealed during or after intense, traumatic events, such as near-death experiences or witnessing the death of a friend. Although the novel centers on only three characters, these three characters represent highly prominent reasons that American’s had for enlisting; to continue a family legacy and protect his family’s honor, to escape the steep decline and unhappiness of his life, and by accident or unwillingly being drafted.