Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers

Author:Walter Dean Myers [Myers, Walter Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Afro-Americans, War Stories, Action & Adventure, Vietnam War; 1961-1975, Juvenile Fiction, African American, Military & Wars, General, United States, Vietnamese Conflict; 1961-1975, Historical, Boys & Men, People & Places, Fiction, African Americans, War
ISBN: 9780545055765
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 1988-07-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

What had happened? The squad had been in a firefight, and we had been almost overrun. For the first time since I reached Nam we had been in the middle of it. Turner had been killed. And not by some faceless enemy, some random shot from far away, but by an enemy I could see and hear. And what about me? I had stood trembling in fear and waiting, and had run in near panic for the choppers and hoped and prayed for a few minutes more of life. The war was not a long way from where we were; we were in the middle of it, and it was deeply within us.

We didn’t talk about the wounded man or about Turner, who had died. I think we were glad that we hadn’t known him better. Maybe, even, that if somebody had to die from the squad, it was better that it was a new guy. It was always better that it was someone else.

“Hey, everybody listen to this!” Monaco was in his shorts, sitting on his bed with the letter in his lap. “‘Dear Sonny, I have been thinking more and more about you every day-I know that you are a long way away, and have a lot on your mind and everything. But, Sonny, I wanted to ask you this. Will you marry me when you get home? Please think about it a lot, as I think you and I would make a nice couple. I got the idea while I was down at the mall on Route 440 yesterday. If you don’t think you want to marry me, please don’t put it in a letter. Just don’t say anything and I will know. Yours, Julie.’”

“She pregnant?” Peewee asked.

“No, she just loves me, man,” Monaco said. “This chick has been in love with me since before I even knew what love was.”

“You going to marry her?” Walowick asked.

“I don’t know, what do you guys think?”

“What she look like?” Peewee asked.

“She’s five-two, maybe five-three,” Monaco said. “Kind of fine, but she ain’t really the foxy type, you know what I mean? She’s an athlete, too. She played softball for St. Dominick’s in Jersey City.”

“We got to vote on it,” Johnson said. “I vote against it.”

“Why?” Monaco looked over at where Johnson was cleaning his machine gun.

“She a nice girl?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why she want to marry you?” Johnson ran the swab through the barrel of his piece. “You ain’t even got no job.”

“I’ll get a job when I get home,” Monaco said. “You see these hands? These hands can do anything in the damn world. I can make stuff, I can fix stuff,

I can do anything. Maybe I’ll even be a cop or a fireman, something like that.”

“What she do?” Johnson asked.

“She got a good job,” Monaco said. “She works for Western Electric.”

“I vote for the marriage,” Peewee said.

“Marry her,” Brunner said.

“Monaco, do you love this girl?” Brew said.

“Yeah,” Monaco said. “I love the shit out of her.”

“You go to the same church?”

“Yeah.

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