Steven was in the plane, it had just landed in Vietnam. Steven had just been drafted to the Vietnam war. He was saying to himself, Stay calm Steven, you’re gonna be fine, nothing bad is gonna happen. Steven was screamed at to get off the plane because he was the only soldier that was still on the plane. He got off the plane nervously, he almost had a nervous breakdown. When he got off the plane he could smell diesel fuel and freshly cooked steaks.
Lieutenant Miller came up to him and said, “Son, why didn't you get off the plane?”
“I am scared that something bad is going to happen again,” he answered nervously.
“What happened to you?” Miller questioned.
“Well it all started when my older brother died over here, he enlisted in the war, he was always the patriotic type. A year after that my dad took me hunting for the first time, I was ten. When we made it to the tree stand we were going to be sitting in for the rest of the day, my dad heard a noise, it sounded like someone screaming and he told me to stay at the stand and not to touch anything, and me being ten I decided to pick up his gun, and while I was playing with it, I ended up accidentally pulling the trigger, right when I pulled that trigger I could sense that something was wrong,” he admitted sorrowfully.
“So, son what happened after that?” he asked inquisitively.
“Well I heard a man scream, I didn't recognize the scream at the time, but after I saw him I knew what I had just done, I felt like I was going to be sick, it was my father, he saw me and called me over and I went, he told me there was no time left to save him, the bullet I accidentally fired had hit him right in the chest, I ran to the cabin to call for help, but by the time they were there it was too late, my father had died after that my mother and my little brother had both alienated me, they treated me as if I wasn't even a person anymore, they treated me as if I was a dog who had bit someone, I wasn't allowed to leave the house unless it was to go to school, school felt like the only place I was safe, where nobody would beat me, all of my mom’s new boyfriend’s were the type to beat me because they wanted my mom to be happy and they could see how much pain I caused her.” He hung his head and his body started to shake. 

“Oh my, Steven I'm sorry that happened to you but you were drafted to fight in this war and you have to do your part.” He barked intensively.
“But I'm afraid that I won't be of any help, whenever I hold a gun my hand just starts to shake out of control I don’t have any idea how I made it through basic training, but I feel it's only because so many young men just come here to die, maybe they were trying to do me a favor by sending me over here to my death.” He said blankly.
Lieutenant Miller looked very angry, only Steven didn't know why he looked so angry but lieutenant Miller said “Some little b**** who can't hold a gun and shoot straight is no help to me, so son I want you to go sit in your tent and take a long break to think about yourself, and I want you to come back out, but only if you're ready to shoot a gun and kill some charlie.”
Steven quickly closed the opening in his tent. Steven went into his tent without emotion, it was almost as if what lieutenant Miller had said pushed him over the breaking point to the point where he was just done with everything. When he made it into the tent he just sat on his cold hard bed. When he was sitting on his bed staring out into the field behind the tent, he wondered what his family must feel about him being the second man in his family to go the Vietnam, but then he remembered that his family didn't care about him. They think of him the same way most people think about a stray dog, they don't care if he lives or dies, whatever happens won't affect them. The other soldiers came into the tent but none of them talked to him except Ben, the second that Ben walked in he looked right at Steven and said
“Why are you just sitting in here, why aren't you out there celebrating” he asked
“What exactly do we have to celebrate, is it the march to our deaths, because that is something that I'm not really that excited for, but anyways the reason I'm in here is because lieutenant Miller told me to stay in here until I'm ready to willingly pick up a gun and end another human's life because the government told me too.” He answered
“Well none of us draftees want to kill anybody, but killing somebody is better than dying yourself. Anyways I got what I needed so I'll talk to you later, but seriously think around what I said okay.” He said happily
It was a little later in the day when Steven decided to run away, he was didn't know if he was going to come back or not. When he ran away he saw a waterfall about a mile away from the camp. When he was there he had started to think to himself Steven, why can't you just kill someone, Ben is right it is stomach better to kill someone than die yourself. But on the other hand if you were to die who would care. You don't have any friends or family that care about you, you should just end it here, you brought your pistol, just pull it out, and end it all, end all the suffering, and pain but not just yours, if you kill yourself it's going to make your mom and brother happy too, so just end it. Steven is having an inner struggle, he doesn't know what to do. Steven pulls out his pistol, he puts it in his mouth, then pulls the trigger.  Nothing happens. Steven starts to laugh hysterically, puts the gun down, sits there and wonders why the gun didn't go off. Why didn't it shoot, I was going to do it that time, I was going to end everyone's suffering and pain. He then realized that his pistol didn't have any bullets in it.
Why doesn't the gun have any bullets in it. What if I needed to defend myself, thanks a lot government, thank you for continually screwing me over. When Steven was in front of the refreshing waterfall he thought long and hard about whether he was going to head back to camp or not. If I go back there I'm probably going to be punished for leaving without a reason, but I don't think anyone would even notice if I wasn't even there. It's not like I can survive in a Vietnamese jungle for the rest of my life, and I can't speak Vietnamese so I think that I'm going to have to go back. Steven had made up his mind, I'm going to return, I only hope they didn't notice I was gone.
Steven started his journey back. On his way there he heard a large group of men speaking in a language he couldn't understand. He didn't know what to do about the voice because it was quite loud, he could guess there were somewhere around one or two hundred voices, it sounded like a large crowd. Our camp only has somewhere around 300 men, they could easily wipe us out if they surprised us. I need to warn the others when I get back. Steven picked up his pace. When he returned to the camp his tent was full of soldiers, they were all looking for him. Especially Lieutenant Miller.
“I'm back, but you have bigger problems than punishing me for leaving, there is an entire enemy platoon about half a mile from here, and I think they’re going to attack us.” He said nervously.
“No maggot, that would be the other half of our camp returning from looking for you.” Miller said angrily.
“Oh, but why exactly are you going all this way to look for a me, I can't even use a gun, I'm no help to you?” He asked inquisitively.
“The only reason we would bother to save a maggot like you is you have important Intel the enemy cannot learn, and you're too weak, there's no way you could withstand the enemies torture, I want you to to go and sit on that hill back there, it's where we keep our ammo, guns, and artillery but you only have to stay there for tonight, we have a plane coming back for you tomorrow!” He boomed.
“Okay, I know none of you care but, I truly am sorry you all had to do this for me, but you should have just let me die.” He said.

He went up on the hill and he was just pacing back and forth thinking, because he still had a bad feeling down, deep in his stomach. His body was telling him that something bad was about to happen. There wasn't that much to do up there other than count the guns and ammo for fun. He didn't want to be by that many guns. It just made his mind race with thoughts of killing himself because nobody cared about him. With all of the guns up here is should be easy to do it. I know that nobody cares about me or what happens to me, but maybe all the people looking for me actually cared what happened to me, but not for the same reason that I want them to care.
All of a sudden Steven was ripped out of thought by the sound of gunfire. Steven was shocked, he didn't know where the shots were coming from. Steven saw the carnage of the shots being fired, He saw the corpses of people he didn't really care about, it was different when he saw his father’s corpse. When he saw his father’s corpse he was devastated. But when he saw these corpses the only thing he could feel was guilt, he felt this guilt because only if they listened to him none of this would happen. Steven was just staying on the hill like he was ordered to. The member in Stevens camp surrendered quickly, because they lost so many men. The enemy slowly interrogated every single one of them. After they went out of the interrogation tent, they were different people. Steven could only imagine what happened to them. When Lieutenant Miller was taken into the tent, he gave Steven a message, only with his eyes. When Steven saw those eyes, they were eyes filled with fear, except for a glimmer of hope.
Steven understood the plan Lieutenant Miller had just given him, he knew what must be done, only he couldn't bring himself to do it. With the guns and ammunition he had up there he could have taken down the enemies holding all of the camp hostage, there weren't that many enemies left, most of them went back to get supplies. C'mon Steven why can't you just pick up that gun and help all of your fellow soldiers? Why are you still afraid, how do you know if something bad is gonna happen unless you try, you need to take some risks in your life. He thought. Lieutenant Miller wasn't the only one to see Steven, so could Ben. Ben was trying to get his attention, when that didn't work Ben was fed up, he angrily yelled out
“Steven you have to help us! I don't really care about your problems right now, I just want you to save us, shoot these commie bastards!”  As he said this one of the enemies pulled out his knife, walked over to Ben, and slit his throat. As that happened a group of enemies started running towards the hill, Steven had only two options, either pick up a gun and fight back, or die with the rest of them. He picked up the gun, the only thing he could think about was when he accidentally shot his father, he did not want that to happen again, he knew this time would be different, he was going to make it different. He righteously threw down the gun.
The group kicked down the flimsy door, rushed in and tied him up. When they led him down the hill to join the rest of the prisoners, all of the men were booing him, And calling him a traitor. While this was happening the enemies were all lined up, with a firing squad pointed directly at the Americans, two enemies for every American. When they were all lined up Steven could only think of what it looked like back at home at his family’s farm.
The Vietnamese general shouted out these three words “S? ba, S? hai, M?t!” (counting down from three to one in Vietnamese) when he stopped shouting, it was all over in a quick, deafening bang. Then there was just the loud slam of all the young lifeless bodies as they hit the ground. All of the Americans assigned to the camp were killed, every single one.