Who knows where the short story blows

I've had this idea for a short story rolling around my brain for well over twenty years, and yeah, I know it's never going to get written but ...

It's about the War in Vietnam, which luckily enough, I didn't have to take part in, and as you probably noticed I capitalized the W in war in homage to people who unluckily enough did have to take part in ...it.

It's about a Sgt and a Lt and a guy who really had no business being there in the first place, as told by a third person in the first person.

It takes place in Vietnam in a small combat squadron or platoon or whatever they call the smallest division of troops on the frontline.

The Sgt was a real jerk, a real hardass, a real army type army guy, that everybody hated, and he was particularly hard on, and hated by, a young borderline retarded grunt, who, I dunno, let's say we call him Billy.

The Sgt always kept Billy close by, he never let him out of his site, he just didn't trust him. The Sgt never let Billy go out on point, ever.

In comes a new Lt, some guy fresh out of college, probably a west coast surfer type dude that everyone really liked, and Billy really adored him.

There was tension between the Sgt and the Lt. They were from two different worlds, and you knew something was going to happen.

The other guys liked Billy, he was like a mascot to them, the kind of guy you were always giving a lucky rub too.

Billy keeps on to the Lt about how he has never been out on patrol, and the Lt is sure why not, if you want to go out on point, go out on point.

The Sgt goes ballistic, he can't believe it, he practically comes to blows with the Lt.

You guessed it, Billy goes out on point, he gets lost, ambushed, killed, whatever and the whole platoon freaks out.

They confront the Lt, wondering how he could have let someone like Billy do something so dangerous. The Lt just sort of sluffs it off, it's war, shit happens

Boom, the shit hits the fan, and at the first opportunity the Lt is fragged. Fragging being the act of killing someone on your side, usually a non-com or an officer, during some sort of skirmish with the enemy and thus covering it up as being killed in combat.

The Lt has friends in high places and the fragging is investigated. Everyone from the platoon is scheduled to be interrogated, and out of nowhere the Sgt, who didn't frag the Lt, confesses to the murder.

Everyone in the platoon wonders why, why, why. I mean everyone hated the Sgt, and he knew that they hated him.

To make a short story even shorter, the Sgt copped to the murder for the same reason he kept a tight reign on Billy. These soldiers were his men, they were his responsibility, their lives were in his hands, and yeah it's old fashioned, and yeah it's old school, but the Sgt really believed in loyalty, fidelity, and all those other groovy type things that are pretty much ignored anymore, or at least were, and yeah, probably still are, to some degree.
These men were in his charge and he took it seriously, very seriously.
He felt he failed them, so he took the rap.

The End
I think