How do Richie’s
beliefs about war change throughout his tour of duty in Vietnam?
Richie joins the army with illusions and
myths about war. He learned about war from movies and stories that
portray battle as heroic and glorious, the army as efficient and
organized, and warfare as rational. In these movies, the good, skillful
people emerge victorious, while the bad people die. What Richie
and the soldiers find in Vietnam bears no resemblance to this mythologized
version of war. The army is inefficient and fallible. The bureaucracy
fails to process Richie’s medical profile for his injured knee,
so he gets sent out to combat. Most of the officers who command
Richie and his peers are far from heroic—looking out for their own
lives at best and their own careers at worst. There are a few noble
exceptions, such as Lieutenant Carroll—men who risk their own lives
to save the men under them. In the heat of battle, soldiers think
of nothing but self-preservation. Paralyzed by fear, they act thoughtlessly,
often killing their allies in the process. Battles are far from
organized and are instead utterly chaotic. The Vietnamese villagers
are not happy to receive help from the Americans, and the Vietcong
often kill such villagers for accepting supplies from the American
forces.
At the beginning of his tour of duty, Richie clings to
the myth that people die only if they are not smart and careful,
but he realizes that in battle, life or death is just a matter of
chance. There is no way to be smart or careful during such a war.
The political ideology behind the war turns out to be similarly
unrealistic. Richie is first inspired to think of fighting for his
country and for ideals like freedom and democracy, but in the heat
of battle, such rhetoric becomes empty. As the men are surrounded
by the horrors of war, the neat divisions between right and wrong
fade, and the sense of being on the side of good is no longer as
easy to maintain. Rather than fight for country or freedom, Richie
realizes that the soldiers fight to stay alive.
How do war
movies perpetuate the romantic ideals of war? How does Fallen
Angels criticize these movies and myths?
War movies exhibit the clichés of war myths
common in American popular culture, such as the inevitable tragic
death of any baby-faced virgin soldier. The presence of such stories
about war is chilling because it reveals a tendency to romanticize
real wartime tragedies. Such clichés attach false meaning to deaths
that are often senseless and brutal, not beautiful and romantic
like the customary myths. In many cases, American soldiers die,
and terror makes other American soldiers careless. When Richie patrols
with another company, for instance, one American platoon mistakes
another American platoon for the enemy and kills more than a dozen
friendly soldiers before realizing the mistake.
The romanticized myths of the soldier’s heroism and patriotism may
help a soldier’s family deal with his death because it gives the parents
a reason for the sacrifice of their son. However, these myths do
not allow civilians to acknowledge the brutality and ugliness that American
sons must face when they go to war. These myths do not do justice
to the soldiers’ sacrifices. They also make it difficult for the
soldier to share his burden of fear and suffering with his family. Richie
is unable to tell his mother and Kenny the truth about the war because
he does not want to upset them or lower their opinions of him. He
does not want them to feel the fear and anxiety that he feels during
his time in Vietnam.
How do the
soldiers cope with the horrors that they see? Contrast the coping
mechanisms of Richie, Peewee, and Lobel.
Faced with the horrors of war, each soldier
must either reconcile reality with his personal beliefs or cling
tenaciously to comfortable illusions of absolute morality. Richie,
unlike many of the other soldiers, chooses the difficult first option,
struggling to make sense of his experiences and refusing to turn
away from the difficult questions they raise. Richie’s comrades,
who are too afraid to come to terms with the reality of their situation,
warn him against what they call his dangerous thinking. Each soldier
has his own way of blocking out the uncomfortable thoughts and nagging
doubts. Richie recognizes that he is alone in his search for truth,
reflecting that “the questions kept coming and nobody wanted to
deal with them.” Yet just as his friends cannot bear to look the
reality head on, Richie cannot bear to ignore it.
Peewee and Lobel both try to understand their role in
the war, but do so in different ways because of their different
personalities and backgrounds. Peewee responds to fear and confusion
with brash humor, making jokes out of any unsettling doubts. When
Peewee is momentarily stunned by the Vietnamese mother’s sacrifice
of her child, Richie is able to pull himself out of his paralysis
by joking, “They got kids over here?” Moments later he casually
asks, “Me? Feel bad? . . . Never happen,” showing that he hides
his emotions behind a facade of bravado. Lobel, on the other hand,
turns to movies as his escape. He views Vietnam as a giant movie
set and sees himself as the star of a war film. His obsession with
movies is more than a simple diversion—it is an escape from a reality
that is too difficult for Lobel to face unprotected. He desperately
clings to the belief that the movies are “the only real thing in
life,” thereby allowing himself to dismiss the horrible sights he
sees around him as unreal. Like Peewee’s humor, Lobel’s obsession
with movies helps him filter out the tough questions of morality
that plague Richie. By believing that the world of movies is more
real than the battlefield, Lobel can pretend that such difficult
questions are not even worth asking.
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