People change in this world, doesn't matter if they want to or not. They might not change for the better, but they will change. Friends turn into enemies, enemies turn to friends, it happens every day. Usually changes happen from traumatic experiences, like losing a loved one. But one of the worst of them all is war, and that is what the characters from Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers had to go through. They killed in cold blood, they watched their friends die in front of them, and they themselves were as close to death as possible. Through all this, they would never be the same people.
Richard Perry, or Perry as everyone called him, was one of the main characters of this book. His experiences in war alone would be enough to give anyone nightmares. Perry watched his friends get torn to pieces by explosions and bullets. When he was wounded, Perry was carried away from the battlefield in a medevac chopper, which stands for medical evacuation. He and his friend Brew both got flown out, and as the medics worked on them in the helicopter, they held hands. The book described his hand feeling cold, limp, and lifeless. Then he watched his friend get put into a body bag as the medics zipped it up.
Another traumatic experiences for Perry was when he was searching in a village for remaining Viet Congs who were terrorizing the villagers. As he walked into a hut, from his backside one aimed a gun at his head from point blank and pulled the trigger. The only response he got was a few clicks from his gun, the Viet Cong's gun jammed. So then the both had a quick fight using fists and the butts of their guns, and Perry eventually knocked the Cong down to the ground. He took out his M16 and unloaded a full clip into the Cong's face, tearing away flesh, bone, and muscle. Still scared, he slammed in another clip and started firing more rounds into the dead man's face. Once he was done there was a lump of flesh, a little bone, and a tooth. That was all that remained of the Cong's face.
Being in a war can really mess with your head from all the horrible things you see. Some people have nightmares, others need to be put into a mental institute. The book never did say what happened to the characters in the book except for the people who didn't survive the whole book. They grieved for the dead, yet were happy at the same time that they weren't the one in the body bag. Whatever happened to them, they would never be the same group of little boys who went into the war.
