Vietnam War in Fallen Angels

'We must make greater efforts, we must accept more sacrifices, because as I have said many times, this is our country. The existence of our nation is at stake, and this is mainly a Vietnamese responsibility' (President Johnson ¶ 40). This was about the most well-known war that happened and is still being talked about in schools and many other places. The war is called the Vietnam War. The war killed many soldiers on both sides of the fight, the American’s and North Vietnamese.

Looking at the war and the history of the war compared to the book, Fallen Angels, is looking through the Historical and Biographical lens. The historical and biographical lens is a lens were readers look through the eyes of people from history and look at the book or an event that they are looking at through their eyes. Looking at events through this lens help readers see what the people from that time period say and what they thought when the people decided to start the event.

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Through the historical and biographical lens, readers can see that the book is based off real events from the past and shows how much happened and didn’t happen compared to the media.

There were many things that were known and unknown by different people during the war. One thing that was well-known at the start of the war and throughout the war was that the US needed and wanted as many people as they could get for the war. The US government was losing more people than they were gaining at the battlefield.

“On many occasions, I have told the American people that we would send to Vietnam those forces that are required to accomplish our mission there. So with that as our guide, we have previously authorized a force level of approximately 525,000. Some weeks ago to help meet the enemy's new offensive we sent to Vietnam about 11,000 additional Marine and airborne troops” (President Johnson ¶ 44-45).

This was a time that the US government was desperate for people to fight and continue the war in Vietnam. From the book, Perry explained to the readers that he wasn’t going to be allowed to fight on the doctor’s request. “At first my unit was scheduled to go to Nam, but the doctor at Fort Devens had said my knee was too bad for combat duty. I was assigned to a supply company while I waited for new orders. But then my old company didn’t go to Nam, they went to Germany instead -- which was cool because there wasn’t any fighting going on over there -- and I got orders for Nam” (Myers 5). This shows through the book that the government needed men to fight. They didn’t want to leave any person not fighting because as it is explained earlier, the US army was losing more men than they were bringing in to fight. Although Perry’s old company went to Germany, they were still part of the war and ready to fight.

Then seeing that Perry got orders to go to Vietnam (Nam), is showing that the government is willing to put whoever in the war. Although many Americans knew that the government needed men to fight, there was a lot of information that was unknown to the civilians back when the war was going on. Falsifying information was a common trend through the Vietnam war, it is easier to see now the war is over. Perry in the book explained to the readers that they were told that lots of Vietcong (VC) were killed in Saigon. “There wasn’t much about the war. A lot of VC were killed north of Saigon, and President Johnson was saying that the United States was ready to come to the peace table if the Communists were” (Myers 84). This shows that the government was not only lying to the US citizens about information, but they were also not telling the whole truth to the US soldiers either.. Maybe this was to protect the people, maybe it was to try and show how strong the US government is even if they aren’t strong enough to win. Perry is saying in this quote that the US army killed many VC (Vietcong, the enemies).

When in reality, when doing some research the US and South Vietnam gave up Saigon. “On April 29th, the United States knew that their token presence in the city would quickly become unwelcome, and the remaining Americans were evacuated by helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft” (MacArthur ¶ 1). The Vietnam war was a turning point for the US civilians, with media showing that there was a different story going on in the Vietnam war then the government was telling them. During the Vietnam war, the US government knew they were losing and started to falsify information that is given to the US citizens and the US soldiers. This information soon became known to the US citizens because of the advancement of television. From reading the book, the soldiers mention that they didn’t do much and sat around a lot. “We spent another day lying around. It seemed to be what the war was about. Hours of boredom, seconds of terror” (Myers 132).

This quote is showing that the government was lying about how much fighting was actually happening in the Vietnam War. This was false information to the people of the US that they soon understood when media got to go over to the war zone and send back video footage of the war. In the footage, there was many that showed fighting, but many that showed how much they sat around not fighting. The government said “Many men--on both sides of the struggle--will be lost. A nation that has already suffered 20 years of warfare will suffer once again” (President Johnson ¶ 15). They never mention how much the soldiers are actually fighting or how much they are sitting around. There was information that was told but not fully told to both American soldiers and citizens. When looking through the historical and biographical lens, readers can see that there was information that was known and held from both the US citizens and the US soldiers by the US government.

After doing research about the Vietnam war and reading the book, there was some information that I never knew happened or learned, that I could research and find. There was also information read in the book that is known after the war to not be true and could see was lied about by the US government while the war was going on. Viewing the book, Fallen Angels, through the historical and biographical lens help me as a reader interpret what was true information and events from the war in the book and what was fiction made up by the author to make the book complete. The Vietnam war was and still is a well-known war that happened from 1955 to 1975. It was a war that many people would see was unnecessary and other people would say the opposite. This was a war that made the American people start to question the information that the government gave them because many people could start seeing that the government was lying about information.

• “Transcript of the President's Address on the Vietnam War and His Political Plans.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Apr. 1968, movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/04/12/specials/johnson-tetaddress.html.
• “United States History.” Douglas MacArthur, www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1880.html. Myers, Walter Dean. Fallen Angels. Braille International Inc., 2008.