In contrast the usual brutish, crude manner of high-ranking army officials, Carrol is a “gentle man” who encourages his troops rather than yelling at them, who guides them through the tough initial days of war, and who helps them cope with the psychological disturbances that are an inevitable component of their situations in essence, he is not only a mentor, but also a valuable friend (Myers 132). Lieutenant Carrol, the leader of Perry’s company, is portrayed as a kind and sensitive man, a paragon of a soldier. While Perry enters the Vietnam War believing that all soldiers are heroes and that dying defending his country would be a noble way to go, his perception soon changes following the death of his mentor. Throughout the story, there are a few crucial moments within the novel without which Perry’s metamorphosis may never have come to pass one is the death of his friend and mentor, Lieutenant Carrol, which causes Perry to discard his idealized image of war, and the other is his first kill, which forces him to accept the reality about himself and human nature. As the novel progresses, Perry’s time in the army molds him into the person he will become, transforming him from a naïve child to a mature man with a practical perspective on life. However, the longer he remains in his squad, the more his blind faith fades away, and it is eventually replaced with a more realistic, worldly take on the army and life in general.

Despite his less-than-stellar motivations for joining, Perry harbors high hopes for his life in the army he is extremely idealistic, almost to the point of gullibility, believing exaggerated media portrayals of the army as a noble institution designed for the propagation of democratic values.

As the novel Fallen Angels opens, the protagonist, a naïve seventeen-year-old named Richard Perry, has recently enlisted in the army, a choice borne out of a lack of better options.

Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers