in 1996, as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Plot In 1968, three friends in a tight-knit Slavic American community in Western PennsylvaniaMike Vronsky, Steven Pushkov and Nick Chevotarevichwork in a steel mill and hunt for deer with their co-workers Axel and Stan and bartender friend John. Mike, Steven and Nick are preparing to leave for military service in the Vietnam War. Steven is engaged to Angela, who was secretly impregnated by another man. Mike and Nick are close friends who live together and both love Linda, who will be moving into their home to escape from her abusive, alcoholic father. While dancing at Steven and Angela's wedding, Linda accepts Nick's spontaneous marriage proposal. As the newlyweds drive away, Nick implores a drunk, naked Mike to ensure he returns from Vietnam. Mike, Nick and the other men go on a final deer hunt. Mike successfully kills a deer with a single shot, in accordance with his principles. In Vietnam, Mike, now a Green Beret, is coincidentally reunited with Nick and Steven in a village, but the trio is overrun and captured by the Viet Cong. They are imprisoned in a bamboo and wire cage on a river and forced to participate in games of Russian roulette against other prisoners while the jailers bet. Steven, exhausted and filled with fear, fires his round at the ceiling. As punishment, he is left to die in a separate bamboo "pit," surrounded by rats and dead bodies. Mike devises a plan with Nick and convinces their captors to put three bullets in the revolver's cylinder instead of just one. Mike then fires the revolver at their captors, while Nick grabs a nearby soldier's rifle, which he then uses to help kill the remaining guards. The two release Steven, who is now suffering from PTSD, out of the pit. Making their escape, the trio float down the river on a fallen tree trunk. When they reach a suspension bridge, Nick, his leg having been shot during the firefight, is rescued by an American helicopter, but Steven is exhausted and falls back into the river. Mike drops to help Steven, while Nick is flown away in the helicopter. Steven's legs are broken in the fall, so Mike carries him until they meet a caravan of refugees fleeing to Saigon. Nick is treated at a U.S. military hospital. Once released, Nick wanders out into the city of