The Point Is All That We Hold Dear

For reviewers and pundits who have commented on Steven Spielberg’s remarkable film, “Saving Private Ryan,” there is ostensibly only one issue: Why would young men in the prime of life put themselves in harm’s way?

Writing recently in People magazine, Leah Rozen characterized this view by asking: “Why fight at all? What does any one man owe another?

And was it all worth it?”

So why did these young men willingly give their lives?

Although I cannot offer empirical evidence, I believe that the World War II generation recognized that its world was in a life-and-death struggle.

This wasn’t merely a just war. It was a war against tyrants, to preserve what is right and just about our system. Tokyo Rose and her German counterpart made few converts during the war.

American soldiers knew what they were fighting for. They knew the risks of their D-Day mission. They knew that the beaches at Normandy led inexorably to Berlin.

Three years earlier, those men who left the landing barges at Omaha Beach were skating at Venice Beach, Calif., making out at lake-front locations and sweating through final exams in school. They did what teenagers ordinarily do, then and now.

When duty called, these young men responded. Their blood drenched the sands of Northern France as Nazi machine gunners mowed them down. But still they came.

When bullets penetrated their bodies, they called for their mothers or their girlfriends. They prayed for recovery. Some never knew what hit them.

In the end, they displayed a bravery essential for national survival. One cannot remain free of emotion in the cemeteries of Normandy, where row after row of dead American adolescents were buried so that our future could be secured.

There is a nagging question that emerges from watching this film, one that no pundit, to my knowledge, has asked. Would the contemporary generation of Americans be capable of responding to the demands of bloody war as did the adolescents of World War II?

Of course, this question begs speculation and little more. But, have we grown skeptical of all government-inspired activity?

Has narcissism diminished a concern for anything but the self? Is there a residual patriotism dormant in the body politic that can be awakened by a just cause? Are there any wars young people consider just?

Do we consider modern warfare, in which missiles are exchanged, bereft of bloodshed and gore?

“Saving Private Ryan” is a period piece, a moment from our past not easily recaptured.

One hopes we will never actually witness the horror and brutality of that kind of war again. And one hopes that if, God forbid, we are obliged to fight, there are Americans in the fields of Iowa and on the sidewalks of New York who have the courage to give their lives for their country.

Nations depend not only on rule of law, the promise of opportunity and the expression of compassion, but also on a citizenry that feels responsible for the generations that follow.

As hard as it was to watch this film and as hard as it was to imagine the chaos and violence on the beaches of Normandy, I am privileged to say I am an American, a mere dwarf who fully appreciates the giants who gave their lives so that people like me could survive.

If Spielberg simply wanted to say “war is hell,” he accomplished his goal. But if he is asking why, despite the hell, some continue to fight and prevail, he is raising a different issue, one that we would be wise to think about and digest.

It is good for this nation to be aroused from her complacency, even if it takes Hollywood to do it.