Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers features Richard Perry who is the sole support for his family. He is 17 and has had to put aside his dreams of a college education and a writing career. He goes into the army as a way out of the poverty and violence surrounding him in Harlem. Though he has a medical injury his medical records are 'misplaced' and he is shipped off to Vietnam to fight in the war. He chronicles his time there in a journal.
