The film starts
off with old Jamese Ryan with his family going to the cemetary, visiting
Captain John Miller's grave. Then, a flashback starts with
several companies of American soliders traveling in "floating tanks" landed
at Omaha Beach on D-Day--June 6, 1944. The bullets were flying everywher,
hitting young soilders of ages betweem 19 and 20. In Steven's film,
you can see bullets striking a solider flush on the forehead, blood splattering
out, the artillary blowing away a G.I's leg, a solider trying to find pieces
of his body, and bowels oozing out from a soilder's stomach. In July
23's issue of Newsweek, the scence is expalined as "an inferno of
served arms, spilling intestines, flying corpses and blood red tides."
The sea immediately became the "red" sea. Some soilders didn't even
get a chance to get off the boat. Veteran Sgt. John Robert Slaughter
recalled the scene when he was there: "It was chaos", "There was
screaming and men drowning, and bullets flying everywhere", "Good guys
get killed, too", and "War is--forgive me, but it's true--war is hell."
Back to the film, Captain John Miller instructed his squad to forward.
He had many losses, but some of his men were brave enough to give up their
lives for the advancement of the war. Finally, very few American
soliders survived and established a foothold at Omaha Beach. However,
they have captured the enemy's pillbox, which commands their sector.
Captain Miller
advanced on with his men, first getting in touch and report their condition
at Omaha Beach back at the headquarter. Later, Captain Miller found
out that his mission is not over yet. He received another job, a
job that requires him to find the best men and find one man, Private James
Ryan. In Washington, General George C. Marshall gave him the order
because three of his brothers have already died in combat within days of
one another, and it would be a great grief for his mother on an Iowa farm
if she receives all four American flags at the same time (each American
flag symbolizes a life contributted in combat).
Then, Captain
Miller received the order, and he started to find 7 men with him on this
mission. Among the 7 men, he traded Upham, who knows how to speak
German, just in case there is a need for translation. However, Captain
Miller made a wrong decision, for this inexperienced corporal (Jeremy Davies),
not only was he frightened in combat, but he had to cowardly witness his
men killed by the enemy personally. Other 6 men he took along are
a medic (Giovanni Ribisi), a cynical New Yorker who doesn't want to risk
his life (Ed Burns), the Jew (Adam Goldberg) who tried to save a little
French civilian girl but died, the Italian (Vin Diesel), the Bible-quoting
sniper from Tennessee (Barry Pepper), and (Tom Sizemore) Captain Miller's
loyal second in command. The rule of fighting in the war suggests
that although civilians lives may be spared, but mercy shall not be given
to help the civilians. As for Captain Miller, he didn't want to be
there, but he accepted the mission because he wanted to get the job done,
so he can go home and be with his wife (July 27, 1998's Newsweek).
After days of
traveling and hunting down Private Ryan, two men were lost (the medic and
Jew). The Jew died because he was trying to help a French little
girl. The medic died because all men fought the Germans on their
way except Upham. He was too scared to even go closeer to help.
Along their mission, Captain Miller freed a German solider because he thought
that their mission was not to keep killing, but after completing their
mission, they could return home. The cynical New Yorker thought
they should've killed the German solider because in a war, either the enemy
kills you or you kill the enemy. If he let that solider go, he would
come back with his fellows and kill them. The New Yorker was about
to leave, but he thought that leaving halfway by himself would be more
dangerous than sticking together with the team.
They finally
reached another American unit. There, Captain Miller and his unit
found Private James Ryan. Although Pvt. Ryan received the news of
his three brothers' deaths, he resisted to leave his unit because the bridge,
in which his unit was protecting, was crucial to the winning of the war
with the Germans. Captain Miller couldn't do anything about it, so
he and his unit stayed and decided to fight and win this war together/
At the same time, he would make sure that Private Ryan was safe.
The two units
worked together to prepare traps, bombs, and organized soliders to their
positions. Capt. Miller gave everyone a position except Upham.
His only purpose was to carry ammunition, so he could aid to the rest to
fhe soilders when they ran out of ammunition. The only disadvantage
was, he was not prepared to fight, at all. When the Germans came,
many of the American soliders were struck down, including the sniper from
Tennessee, who never miss a shot. Things were looking really bad,
but the worst was when Upham became too scared to aid his buddies with
ammunition. Everyone wondered so badly about Upham. Where were
the ammunition? Yet, in a corner of a house, Upham witnessed his
buddy being slowly stabbed to death in the heart by a German. Upham
couldn't say anything, he was seriously scared. He was so weak that
even the German who stabbed his buddy to death, passed by him,
doesn't give a shit about him. Finally, when Captain Miller decided
to blow the bridge down, he got shot by the Germans. Within those
German soliders included the one he freed away recently. This symbolizes,
in war, no mercy should be given to your enemy, even if you have nothing
against him. Because if you don't kill him, he will kill you.
Captain Miller finally used his last bit of strength, blew up the bridge,
saved Private Ryan. American planes came to rescue, and the Germans
were captured. Upham, never showed up to aid the soliders with ammunition
because he was hiding and running away from enemy all the time. At
the end, Captain Miller told Private Ryan to live a good life, and to promise
him to live a good life. Otherwise, his effort of rescuing him would
be pointless. Private Ryan promised him that.
And Private
Ryan as an old man now, he asked his wife if he was a good man, if he led
a good life. His wife convinced that he did. Private Ryan looked
at his sons, daughters, and grandchildren, agreed that he led a good life;
therefore, his life owing to Captain Miller was not pointless. The
END.
"Parachuting into Ste.-Mere-Eglise on D-Day, I was the most terrifying sight of my entire life: a building, possibly a barn, on fire. Doesn't sound too terrible, but the fire lit up the night sky, making us sitting ducks. I got shot in the hand, busted a few ribs, but I was one of the lucky ones. I saw one guy completely blown to bits-I think shrapnel hit his gammon grenade, and then there was nothing left of him. His empty chute floated to the ground. When I landed, I saw three men named Tlapa, Bryant and Cadish hanging from the telephone poles. It looked like a horrible crucifixion scene. Years later, Tlapa's cousin and I began corresponding because he wanted to know what had happened. He said, "You know, June 6th was his 21st birthday." We hadn't even jumped long after midnight."
"After we landed behind Utah Beach on D-Day, I had just nine men in my platoon left to take out a battery of 105-millimeter cannons pointed right at the causeway where the troops were coming to shore. To get close enough, we had to crawl like snakes through a grassy trench. One private, Popeye Wynn, he forgot his training and had his butt sticking up too far. Unfortunately, he got hit, and hit hard. But he didn't holler "Help!" even though he was in terrible pain. He hollered "I'm sorry!" We're behind enemy lines on D-Day with artillery raiing down on us, and he's yelling "I'm sorry, Lieutenant. I'm sorry, I goofed." He was an example of the loyalty you tried to teach your men. Popeye was a private first class, but I always referred to him as being one first-class private."
"Dec. 7, 1944, was the worst day of my life. People say D-Day was the longest day, but I was there, too, and it was much easier on me than Hill 400 in the Hurtgen Forest. Five thousand men had already tried to capture the hill and the town below. We passed their bodies and burnt-out tanks on the way in. At 7:30 a.m., 130 men in D and F companies assaulted across flat table land as German machine gunners sprayed fire at us. It was icy cold, artillery was raining down and we couldn't even dig in. But we took the 400-meter-high hill. In 1989, I went back with some of my men and we met a group of young German officers. They showed us a textbook that claimed the Germans were outnumbered that day. I said, "That's ridiculous!" We were the ones who were outnumbered, by 10 to one. Only 15 or 16 men in each company made it back on their own power."
"You just try to go on. We lost so many good men, so many."
"One day I was sitting with my back to a hedgerow, talking to a buddy, when a voice called out 'Hey, is there a medic over there?' and they passed a guy over and the fellow had no face, it was just gone. But he wasn't dead--you could see the air bubbles where his mouth used to be. It was all so real. We were just 19, 20 years old--just kid, you know?"
"You're trying to be brave, but more than once you find yourself upchucking when you're looking at your buddy with his intestines hanging out. You know you're going to die, and you know you're going to die horribly--you tell yourself you're going to get wounded and bleed to death, and no one's going to ever find you."
"The true heroes are the guys who didn't get back."--and their true monument is the world they made, but never lived to see.