‘Ryan’ Reminds Us How Much We Owe Soldiers

In his movie, “Saving Private Ryan,” Steven Spielberg gave all Americans, especially veterans, a very special and powerful message for celebrating Veterans Day on Wednesday and every other one to follow. And it wasn’t simply that war is hell.

I must admit that sitting though the first 20 minutes of that movie depicting the assault on the beach was a real challenge for me. It was virtual reality and then some. Once you have been there, the experience remains down deep in your mind. However, afterward, it is brought to the surface, by something or other, nearly every day of your life.

At first I had trouble concentrating on the horror unfolding on the screen. My senses saw and heard Omaha Beach but my mind saw another place. Each time a landing boat ramp fell and machine guns and anti-boat guns killed and maimed those young innocents who were attempting to get ashore, my mind saw Tarawa and hundreds of my fellow Marines dying in a hail of machine gun fire as they tried to wade ashore. The blood in the water at Omaha was the same color it was on Tarawa and in every other assault landing in that war.

The movie allowed the audience to imagine the courage it took to untangle one’s self from the dead and wounded, leave the boat and try to get ashore. The greatest test of courage came at the wall where men were relatively safe. All faced the same choice, with few if any officers to lead them: should they lead or follow others over the wall and face death face to face or stay there?

Some stayed. Getting out of the boat and struggling to get ashore is one thing; leaving a relatively safe position at the wall and purposely determining to engage the enemy face to face is another. America has the great pride of knowing that our soldiers, sailors and Marines, most of whom were not old enough to vote, went over the wall by the hundreds in every assault landing of World War II and the wars that have followed.

Spielberg made the movie with little mention of the reason America was at war or the universal agreement among the free world that Japan, Germany and Italy were a scourge on the face of the Earth that had to be stopped.

Without explaining Hitler and Pearl Harbor, the killing and horror of “Ryan” lost any purpose, other than men in one colored uniform killing men in a different colored uniform and vice versa.

An audience ignorant of the history of World War II could come away saying, “War is stupid, all those young men dying, and for what? It’s stupid.” Did Spielberg leave out the moral justification because he wanted an anti-war movie as some conservatives believe, or did he think that after making “Schindler’s List” he wouldn’t need to explain? If he thought that, he was wrong. A recent Roper poll showed that only 57% of the public knew that World War II occurred in the first half of the century.

The importance of “Ryan” was that it provided a reminder to Americans that we owe our country, our lives and our freedom to the sacrifice and heroism of our military veterans. It also reminded us that combat is a very, very nasty and brutish business.

Both veterans and the public alike appear to view the carnage that took the lives of so many of America’s best with a wide range of emotion. Some veterans and many families who lost loved ones in the war couldn’t possibly not wonder, looking at America today, were their deaths worth it?

Most Americans and certainly all veterans of combat, just like Private Ryan, learned a very special truth. When the war was over, Ryan appreciated that he owed his life to luck and to other men in his unit, many of whom lost theirs. After returning home, he tried as best he could to live a life that would be worthy of their sacrifices.

In a way, I feel that Spielberg was telling Americans that those soldiers and hundreds of thousands of others throughout history have sacrificed for all of us. We who survived are all Private Ryan.

We should try to repay those who fought for us by living the best life that we can. I know that’s how I and most veterans feel. We, who have been lucky enough to come back alive, owe a tremendous debt to those who didn’t. We veterans and all Americans should try each day to make their sacrifices meaningful in our own lives.