Fallen Angels Study Guide

The novel opens in an airport in Anchorage, Alaska, as a group of GIs and Nurses are on their way to Vietnam. The main character, Richard Perry, talks with a "clown" he met on the flight over, named Gates. He meets a nurse named Judy Duncan. They fly on to Osaka Japan. No one is very concerned about going to Vietnam. The rumor is that the fighting is already mostly over. Perry has a bad knee and was supposed to be exempt from combat, but the paperwork hasn't gone through yet. Ironically, the company he was taken out of because of his knee is stationed in Germany, where there is no fighting, and while his paperwork goes through he is assigned to a new company that does actually get assigned to a tour of duty in Vietnam. (read more)