Fallen Angels Letter Home
...n. Sometimes they would even report more enemy kills than we really had, just to promote us into safer positions. There was, however, one exception, Lieutenant Carroll. Lieutenant Carroll was a fine leader. He led an attack in the middle of the night, and was hit by a bullet, and died later that night. A great leader like Lieutenant Carroll didn’t deserve to die. He truly cared about our lives. Most leaders just tried to serve their time and get out as quick as possible. Lieutenant Carroll told us that if we feared death and war we would most definitely be killed. He taught us to be great soldiers. When Lieutenant Carroll fell, we were left with another leader, Sergeant Gearhert. Sergeant Gearhert just threw us onto the battlefield as if we were toy soldiers with no lives. We then realized that not all people were like Lieutenant Carroll. I thought of war as being just like the movies. All of the good people survived and were heroes, and all of the bad guys died in the war. In the movies, the troops were brave serving their country, however, the soldiers in Vietnam were more concerned about their own lives and families. I never could have imagined how grueling war was. The entire time you were thinking of what you were going to do once the war ended. Everybody had a plan to go home to. I had nothing to think about at home. Most guys had girlfriends or wives to go home to. One man named Monaco scheduled a wedding for when he returned. Our troop was so close that he invited all of us to his wedding. Monaco was an extremely brave man. Sergeant Gearhert sent us into a battle and we became separated. Peewee and I were returning to camp, when we came across Monaco lying on the ground alone. We suddenly realized that there were Vietcong soldiers hiding in the bushes. The Vietcong ...