Earn this… earn it: A Memorial Day Tribute
Prologue to a Hero’s Life
This essay is a Memorial Day tribute to all of the heroic soldiers who gave life and limb, blood and treasure in defense of America’s sacred ideas and ideals – God, Family, Country, and America’s Judeo-Christian traditions.
Saving Private Ryan (1998) is an American epic war movie based on perhaps the greatest battle in the history of warfare – the Invasion of Normandy, France in World War II. The script was written by Robert Rodat and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film is distinguished for its explicit and realistic depiction of war, and particularly the ferocity of its opening battle scene which lasts about 27 minutes. This opening scene represents the Omaha Beach assault of June 6, 1944 to such a convincing degree that the audience actually feels that they are on the battlefield with the soldiers. The narrative portrays John H. Miller (Tom Hanks) U.S. Army Ranger Captain and a squad (Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Adam Goldberg, Barry Pepper, Jeremy Davies, Giovanni Bibisi, and Vin Diesel) as they search for a paratrooper, Private First Class James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon), who is the sole-surviving brother of four servicemen.
Saving Private Ryan Plot
The Normandy Invasion began on the morning of June 6, 1944, as American soldiers prepared its offensive on Omaha Beach. American causalities quickly mounted as the soldiers struggled to the treacherous seas as they departed from landing boats only to face a hail of German infantry, machine gun nests, and artillery fire. Captain John H. Miller, a company commander of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, endures the first landing and brings together his squad of Rangers to plot strategy on the beach and to determine how to breach the entrenched German defenses perched high upon the vertical cliffs.
The scene shifts to General George C. Marshall’s office at the U.S. War Department in Washington, D.C., where he learns that three brothers of the Ryan family were killed and when their mother receives all three telegrams in the same day, overwhelmed, she faints. However, there is good news when Gen. Marshall discovers that there is a fourth son, a Private First Class James Francis Ryan who is a paratrooper is missing in action somewhere in Normandy. Moved to tears after reading Abraham’s Lincoln’s Bixby letter, Gen. Marshall immediately commands that Private James Ryan be located and returned home.
Three days after D-Day, Miller obtains new orders to locate Pvt. Ryan and safely bring him back to his bereaved mother in America. His hand-picked group of six men from his company – TSgt. Mike Horvath, Privates Adrian Caparzo, Stanley Mellish, Richard Reiben, Danny Jackson, medic Irwin Wade – and T/5 Timothy Upham, a map specialist who also speaks French and German (who seems to hold secret pacifist ideas), concludes the search party. After several skirmishes with Nazi forces and false leads, including locating another Pvt. James Ryan, they encounter a friend of Ryan’s who informs Miller that Ryan is defending a key bridge over the Merderet River in the town of Ramelle, France. On the way to Ramelle, Miller resolves to neutralize a strategic German machine gun position, even though his men think it a bad idea. Wade is fatally wounded in the subsequent combat, but Miller, at Upham’s advising, fails to execute a surviving Nazi soldier, but instead releases him if he promises to stay out of the war. This would be a fateful act that at the end of the movie would rise up against Captain Miller.
‘Earn this… earn it!’
At long last they come to Ramelle where Miller and the squad find a small group of paratroopers commanded by Corporal Henderson, one of which is Ryan. Ryan is informed of his brothers’ deaths, the assignment to return him to America, and that two men had been killed in their odyssey to locate him. Ryan is distraught at the news of his brothers, yet objects because he believes it unjust to go home while his comrades still fight. Here is the dialogue of that movie scene:
- : James Francis Ryan of Iowa?
- : Yes, sir. Paton, Iowa, that’s correct. What is this about?
- : Your brothers were killed in combat.
- : Which – Which ones?
- : All of them.
- [
Ryan pauses in shock and then begins to cry
- ]
- [
Being told he can go home
- ]
- : Hell, these guys deserve to go home as much as I do. They’ve fought just as hard.
- : Is that what I’m supposed to tell your mother when she gets another folded American flag?
- : You can tell her that when you found me, I was with the only brothers I had left. And that there was no way I was deserting them. I think she’d understand that.
Epilogue to a Hero’s Life
In the final climatic scene knowing that this act will no doubt kill him, Miller agrees to take command and protect the bridge with the remaining decimated manpower he had left. As the Nazi’s 2nd SS Panzer Division reach their location with infantry and armor, the following battle exact heavy German casualties, but also many of the Americans – including Horvath, Jackson, Mellish – are killed. While struggling to blow up the bridge to keep the Nazi forces advance at bay, Miller is mortally wounded ironically by the German prisoner released earlier in the movie at Upham’s urging, yet has resumed battle with the attacking SS forces. At this point in the movie just as a Tiger tank reaches the bridge, an American “tank killer” P-51 Mustang suddenly appears out of nowhere and destroys the tank, together with American reinforcements who defeat the residual Nazi forces. Upham, frantic at the arrogance of one of the German prisoner not following his orders to surrender even a gun point, finally gets the courage he lacked throughout the movie due to his cowardice and pacifism and shoots him; immediately the other Nazi soldiers flee in terror.
The first picture above shows that climatic scene at the end of the movie where Pvt. Ryan’s protector, a now dying Captain John H. Miller having protected his charge for most of the movie, has essentially sacrificed his life that Ryan may live. Mustering his last breath he motions Ryan to come closer to him and the heroic Captain Miller utters his final words:
- : [
weakly mutters something
- ]
- : [
leans in closer
- ] What, sir?
- : James, earn this… earn it.
After a close up of the young Pvt. Ryan, the scene morphs into the Old James Ryan with his wife, children and grandchildren at the solemn and iconic graveyard in Normandy, France in the midst of a seemingly endless sea of headstones and kneels before the gravestone of the man who saved his life at Normandy, Captain John H. Miller. Here is the dialogue from that poignant scene with General George C. Marshall:
Old James Ryan: [addressing Capt. Miller’s grave] My family is with me today. They wanted to come with me. To be honest with you, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel coming back here. Every day I think about what you said to me that day on the bridge. I tried to live my life the best that I could. I hope that was enough. I hope that, at least in your eyes, I’ve earned what all of you have done for me.
- : James?…
- [
looking at headstone
- ]
- : Captain John H Miller.
- : Tell me I have led a good life.
- : What?
- : Tell me I’m a good man.
- : You are.
- [
walks away
- ]
- : [
stands back and salutes
- ]
Next is the expressive scene hinted at the beginning of the movie where General George C. Marshall reads a letter of condolence he sent to Mrs. Ryan regarding the deaths of her three sons, yet the good news that her youngest son, James Ryan was saved and will soon be returned home to his mother. Gen. Marshall’s letter reads as follows:
- My dear Mrs. Ryan: It’s with the most profound sense of joy that I write to inform you your son, Private James Ryan, is well and, at this very moment, on his way home from European battlefields. Reports from the front indicate James did his duty in combat with great courage and steadfast dedication, even after he was informed of the tragic loss your family has suffered in this great campaign to rid the world of tyranny and oppression.
- I take great pleasure in joining the Secretary of War, the men and women of the U.S. Army, and the citizens of a grateful nation in wishing you good health and many years of happiness with James at your side. Nothing, not even the safe return of a beloved son, can compensate you, or the thousands of other American families, who have suffered great loss in this tragic war.
- I might share with you some words which have sustained me through long, dark nights of peril, loss, and heartache. And I quote: “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 alter of freedom.” -Abraham Lincoln. Yours very sincerely and respectfully, George C. Marshall, General, Chief of Staff.
America, on this Memorial Day how great would this country actually be toward fulfilling the transcendent ideas, the sublime ideals of our Founding Fathers? On this Memorial Day how great would this country actually be fulfilling the untold sacrifices of the millions of soldiers; the agony of their friends, family, children who in a corollary, de facto sense also paid the ultimate sacrifice for defending America through the Ages? On this Memorial Day how great would this country actually be to defeat ignorance (I don’t know), apathy (I don’t care) and denial (it doesn’t concern me), if people would remember, read, understand history and live by the succinct sacred credo that Captain John H. Miller charged Private James Ryan with? … Earn this… earn it!
Semper Fidelis (always faithful) and Blessed Memorial Day America.
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© Ellis Washington
Category: Commentary
What an outstanding and moving tribute!