Watching a Man-Made Hell

By Prospero E. Pulma Jr.

Whoever wrote that "There is no victory in war, only degrees of losing," must have visited the Hell that man has created countless times in history - war. Steven Spielberg did not only recreate Hell on earth in Saving Private Ryan, he also brought his captive audience on a visit to its blood-soaked fields. The theme is full of moral implications: if you were a general, are you going to risk, and possibly, sacrifice the lives of eight men to save a lowly private and spare his mother from further grief after she lost three of her sons in combat- a mission with little military significance? But for the sake of presenting war's real face to the world on the silver screen, the acclaimed director decided to sacrifice more lives just to save a single life.

Out of curiosity, I surfed the Internet if similar incidents, indeed, happened in World War II and I was not disappointed. The name Frederick "Fritz" Niland appeared several times in the search results. Niland's story and the film's plot were similar that you could swear that the movie was based on his experience. Niland lost three brothers - two were killed in action in Europe and a third was shot down over Burma and was presumed dead - in a span of one week. Like Ryan, he was also a paratrooper who parachuted into France on D-Day. However, unlike his fictional counterpart, the generals did not send a unit to rescue him. Rather, an army chaplain, Rev. Francis Sampson, got him out of the battlefield despite his protests to remain with his comrades. Other soldiers were also sent home after their siblings were killed in action, but Niland's story was the most prominent.
The other critically acclaimed war movies that I have watched - Platoon, The Thin Red Line and Black Hawk Down- paled in comparison to Saving Private Ryan. From the amphibious landing of Allied forces on the beaches of Normandy, France on the morning of June 6, 1944 to the pitch battles that followed for control of the beachhead, Spielberg effectively captured the horrors of war in his masterpiece that anti-war activists should include this movie in their campaign to convince people to join their advocacy for peace. From the scenes that depicted soldiers being mowed down by withering machinegun fire and blasted to smithereens by artillery bombardment, to the waves turned red with blood, to the soldiers crying for their mothers in their death throes, the same message resonated: wars are won and paid in full with human lives!

Spielberg may be criticized for bringing too much carnage on the screen, but what the audience witnessed was a sanitized version of war - graphic for the desired shock effect but not vivid enough to make man renounce war forever. They were just given a brief glimpse of a man-made hell and have yet to shudder when they read or hear the accounts of those who were thrown into its fiery depths and survived to share their harrowing experiences or be pale with fear if they found themselves trapped in the same hellish pit. Like the master storyteller that he is, the bloodbath on the beach was just a preview for the viewers of the climactic battle looming ahead - not between huge armies but between ordinary soldiers appraising the value of a single life.

Sent behind enemy lines to retrieve Private James Ryan (Matt Damon), a paratrooper, and bring him back to safety, Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) and his squad of rangers may be willing to die for flag and country, but not on a mission to save another soldier. Along the way, in-between skirmishes with German soldiers and losing some of their brothers-in-arms in the process, they doubted the moral soundness of their superiors' decision to risk their lives just to save Ryan who has lost all of his brothers in combat and to lessen his mother's grief. The question that they frequently asked, "Don't we have mothers, too?" would have made the general who made the fateful command to pause and rescind his order.

While other war films were preoccupied with glamorizing war by portraying soldiers as the ultimate macho (Sylvester Stallone in Rambo), Saving Private Ryan veered on a different path. While it has the requisite spilling of blood and guts and displaying a high body count, it never forgot to lend a human face to war by including a mother grieving over the death of her sons in its theme. The heart-rending scene where Mrs. Ryan sank to the floor when a car approached their house, aware that the vehicle's passengers brought the grim news about a son 's death, effectively conveyed the message that all of us have mothers who would mourn on our graves. There was no hysterical grieving - just silent, profound sorrow. The other characters, too, also lent a human face amidst the carnage and madness around them. The scene-stealing Private Jackson (Barry Pepper), would recite biblical passages before making a kill. Fear gripped and paralyzed Private Upham (Jeremy Davies) into inaction. The mystifying bond between brothers-in-arms was evident in the refusal of Ryan to abandon his fellow paratroopers and flee to safety because they were his only brothers left. Humanity also reared its ugly head in Steamboat Willie's ingratitude when he repaid Captain Miller's act of mercy by shooting him.

Saving Private Ryan's contribution to anti-war efforts may just be a drop in the ocean. The millions of war casualties, more than fifty million dead in the Second World War alone, may not be enough to call for peace. Man is far too complex to be frightened into suing for peace by presenting staggering casualty statistics. He has gone to war for most of his existence on this planet and there is no reason why he would not rush into battle again for God, flag or country or for whatever flimsy reason that he could find.