Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan

1998

Director: Steven Spielberg

Writer: Robert Rodat

169 Minutes

We all remember the opening sequence. It was like we were there. The pingin on metal. The bullets hitting sand. The blood soaked wave washing up on shore. It was LIKE we were there, only not as real.

To the heroes of Normandy and the rest of the Armed Forces serving foreign and domestic fronts, Saving Private Ryan was a nod to the men and women who fought and dead in World War II. It was a chance for that generation to turn to their kids and kids of kids and say, “yep, that’s what it was like…’

But, the film came down to one man: Private James Francis Ryan.

In most military films, it comes down to one man - the man next to you. You don’t leave him behind. You don’t leave him at all. Every command, unit, squadron, corp, formation, brigade, division, wing, organization, platoon, battalion, regiment, flight, ship, group, region, fleet, or theater all comes down to one person. That’s what makes the United States Military great.

The film is about Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) and his group of soldiers (eight in total) risking their lives for an individual, named Private James Francis Ryan, who lost three brothers in combat in or around the European front.

General George Marshall is quoted, “I have here a very old letter, written to a Mrs. Bixby in Boston. "Dear Madam: I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. Yours very sincerely and respectfully, Abraham Lincoln."

He follows it up with if that boy is out there, we’re going to find him and bring him home.

The scene above is after the fact, many years later, when Private Ryan has come back, with his family, to Tom Hank’s gravesite. He falls before it, thanks him, and then turns to his wife - pleading for her to tell him he was a good man and lived a good life - more so, begging her to help him understand why eight men gave their lives for one man to live and if that’s the case, tell him he lived the best life he could have lived.

She nods, confirming that one man did matter. He has a good life, perfect family, and lived out what those boys on the beaches of Normandy dead for: freedom.

We all remember the opening sequence and the hundreds of men who dead, but at the heart of his film is an individual. Whether it be Tom Hanks or Matt Damon, the individual is what’s important. And what makes this scene great is the justification of living rather than dying or people dying in order for you to live.

That’s what makes this scene great. That’s what makes this country great.