Dear America Letters Home Analysis

Imagine facing the horrors of a war at the young age of 19. In the real world as well as fictional novels, the Vietnam War was considered to be a war unlike any other. Many soldiers faced untold brutal challenges, and often wondered who the enemy truly was. In numerous depicted pieces of literature such as Fallen Angels the fictional stories cannot begin to compare to the real traumatic ones. Research has shown that the traumatic circumstances have caused soldiers mental stress. Research shows the brutality that the soldiers of the Vietnam War went through, the novel Fallen Angels and the video series “Dear America: Letters Home” are very similar in this depiction, but also have slight differences.

Fallen Angels and "Dear America: Letters Home" both focus on the Vietnam War and giving us a look into the life of a soldier. Fallen Angels is a novel that gives readers insight into the mind of a soldier.

Throughout the entire book, the reader gets to know a soldier known as Richie Perry. We get to know what he is thinking and how he feels about the war, and we have the opportunity to see the effects of war on a soldier. "Dear America: Letters Home" is a movie about the letters that soldiers wrote home. The letters are primary sources, so we can know exactly what the soldiers were feeling or thinking about.
The novel and the movie are very similar in many ways. Fallen Angels is an extremely realistic novel about the struggles and heartbreaks of war. In this novel, the reader gets a look into the mind of a soldier. This book gives readers a chance to imagine what it would actually be like to live through the horrors of war. The book tells us about how he feels about being so far away from his home, his guilt about killing people, his grief about losing friends, and his anxiety and paranoia at every second that he is away from camp. Similarly, this is also depicted through firsthand accounts, like letters being sent home. We can clearly read how the soldiers are feeling and what they decide to tell their loved ones back home. "No other KIA or WIA hit me like that. I knew most of them, but his was the first body I ever saw and, being my friend, it was too much. After I left the place, I sat down and cried. I couldn't stop it. I don't think I ever cried so much in my life. I can still see his face now. I will never forget it." (Cantale) The novel also talks about how Perry was affected by those who were killed in combat, and it is very similar to the previous quote. Both the novel and the movie give us bits and pieces of what it was like to be a soldier in the Vietnam War.
Though Fallen Angels and "Dear America: Letters Home" are very similar, they also have some differences. One difference is that the letters are primary sources – they are directly from people who experienced the war. The novel is a work of fiction, and even though it is realistic, it is not from the mind of an actual soldier. This makes the movie a more reliable source to use when doing a research paper. Another difference is that in the book, we know what the character thinks about all the time; the movie only shows what they sent home to their loved ones. In the movie, we don’t know what they're thinking about all the time, we only know what they decided to send to their actually feeling or left out an important event just to spare the recipient of the letter worry. "I am all right, I am all right, I am all right, etc." (Kempner) This soldier is writing to his family about his injury, and he does not want them to worry for him.
What Fallen Angels doesn't portray is what happens to all of the characters a few years down the road.

Many of them will have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and some will even commit suicide because of their fear and paranoia from being in combat. PTSD is a mental health condition that is caused by living through a traumatic event. Symptoms of PTSD are flashbacks, nightmares, and anxiety, though there are many more. For example, here is a quote from Fallen Angels: "The noise was terrible. Every time a mortar went off, I jumped. I couldn’t help myself. The noise went into you. It touched part of you that were small and frightened and wanting your mommy." (Myers, 244) This quote shows how terrifying war can be for the young soldiers; Perry is showing early signs of PTSD. At least 30% of Vietnam veterans have suffered from PTSD after being deployed. Additionally, 85% of those diagnosed still suffer from PTSD, even 30 years after the war ended. Unfortunately, the soldiers who suffer from PTSD will never be the same as they were before the

war.
Research has shown the awful effects of the Vietnam War on the young soldiers minds, the novel Fallen Angels and the movie "Dear America: Letters Home" are similar in this representation, but there are also slight differences in the two. War has long lasting effects on the soldiers that can be extremely damaging to their young and innocent minds. Though the novel Fallen Angels is a very realistic work of fiction, it is still a work of fiction, and some aspects in the book could not even compare to the real tragedies of war. The movie "Dear America: Letters Home" is very similar in its portrayal of war, but there are also small differences.