Clairton in Pennsylvania: The four friends Mike, Nick, and Stan celebrate the wedding of their friend Steve. Since they are all drafted to fight in Vietnam the wedding-party is also the men's farewell party. The next day they joined by others and together they go on a final deer hunt before the men have to leave for Vietnam.
Mike treats hunting as a test of skill, lecturing Stan about the value of "one shot" deer slaying and brushing off Nick's urgings to appreciate nature's beauty. Eventually Michael stalks and kills a deer.
In Vietnam the men are captured by Vietcong soldiers who force Mike and Nick to play Russian roulette for the V.C.'s amusement. Mike turns the game to his advantage so they can escape captivity, but the men are permanently scarred by the episode. They make it back to Saigon where both are hospitalized. Soon Nick goes A.W.O.L., vanishing in the Saigon Russian roulette parlors. Meanwhile Steve has lost his legs in the fighting.
Mike returns alone to Clairton a changed man, as he rejects the killing of the deer hunt and finds solace with Nick's old girlfriend Linda. Disgusted by the antics of his male cohorts at home, Mike decides to bring Steve back from a veterans' hospital, and he returns to Saigon just in time to witness how Nick kills himself in a game of Russian Roulette.
Back in Pennsylvania Michael attends Nick`s funeral along with other close friends of Nick`s. At the loss of words they break out singing the chorus of "God Bless America".