Why is richie numb on the inside

Peewee sees that the army has something to offer him—a sort of equality. Perry flies from Alaska to Tan Son Nhut. He banters with a guy named Peewee and sort of flirts with a nurse named Judy. Why is Richie numb on the inside? He witnessed the carelessness of the army when his friend, Jenkins, is killed. The Vietnam war was widely televised and portrayed the costs of war to the USA as never before seen.

In the novel Fallen Angel by Walter Dean Myers expertly illustrates the loss and tragedy of the war that took so many lives. Many protested because they did not understand that to win a war there must be sacrifices made to achieve the goal.

He suggests that Richie avoid playing the part of the good black guy who everyone thinks is a coward until the end, when he dies while saving everyone else. Richie confesses to Lobel that he wishes he had a girlfriend so he could have another person with whom to exchange letters.

Lobel offers to give him the address of a movie starlet, but Richie is not interested in a pretend girlfriend. They ask each soldier to explain why he is fighting in Vietnam. Each soldier gives a different stock response, citing lofty and slightly abstract goals such as the desire to stem the spread of Communism.

Monaco, who always acts as point man for the squad, leads the others and kills an enemy soldier, while Richie tries to fire a gun that he forgot to load. Back at camp Richie finds the news crew photographing the dead soldier and is astonished that the enemy is no bigger than his brother, Kenny. Such movies tend to infuse senseless deaths with false meaning, giving us beautiful, romantic representations of our favorite myths about good, evil, and heroism.

In this sense, these myths do not give justice to the sacrifices expected of the soldiers fighting in reality. He does not want his family to worry about him unnecessarily. He does not want to shock his family or worry them. He finds it difficult to communicate directly to his mother. Why do the soldiers coming out of Vietnam look older than the ones going in? They were run down from the war. They have seen and experienced a lot of things. You just studied 15 terms! Why is Richie numb on the inside?

He witnessed the carelessness of the army when his friend, Jenkins, is killed. How does Lobel deal with the stresses of the war?

Lobel deals with the stresses of the war by pretending everything is a movie. What is ironic about Perry ending up in Nam? He hurt his knee playing basketball and was not supposed to go to Nam. Lobel receives an angry letter from his father that is filled with antiwar sentiment. Lobel laments the irony of his situation: he joined the army to please his father by proving that he is not a homosexual, and now his father hates him for becoming a soldier in what he regards as an unjust war.

Meanwhile our squad was supposed to stop nighttime traffic between two hamlets. She was too nervous to say how much she loves Perry.