<span>After Jenkins's untimely death, Lieutenant Carroll leads the surviving soldiers in a prayer for him. He calls Jenkins a ‘fallen angel warrior,’ which is the basis for the title of the novel. Carroll explains that this description refers to the extreme youth of the soldiers - these are boys, not men, fighting the battles. The theme of youth and lost innocence is omnipresent throughout the novel. It is a product of Myers’ own experience in the Vietnam War and the fact that the average age of the soldiers who died in combat was less than 20 years old. Most of the men do not want to process the tragedy of Jenkins and what waits for them in this war.</span>
