Do you happen to have a simple routine or Perl module that allows me to open a microsoft word file and allow me to save it in a plain text format?

You know, Kind Monk, there is a CPAN Search Mechanism that allows you to search for such things. I tried it myself (albeait not too strenuously) and came up dry.

However, if you are trying this on an Evil Empire® system you might want to investigate doing something with Win32::OLE, but I'm not an expert in its use so can't help you more.