In the words of a great man, Arvid Harbinger: “War. It’s fantastic!”. War movies are tits. They’re all the fun of blowing shit up and shooting Nazis without having to wear a uniform. One of the best and most realistic war films ever made is Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. The movie is made by the opening sequence alone – the landing at Normandy. Instead of boring you kids with historical facts and mumbo jumbo (the D-Day landing is pretty historically interesting, but since you, the reader, is likely a philistine, we’ll skip it), we’ll just say that shit blew up real good. However, amongst all the explosions, blood, and Vin Diesel’s short role was a pretty damn good movie about de-humanizing.
Think about it: military training’s purpose is to break down the person and rebuild them as a tool. They take orders without question and become a machine of war. Now, back then, everybody went to war in the 1940’s if they were male. Everybody. Even Teddy Ballgame. My grandfather did (and that’s a separate and awesome story for later), and my dad even recollects that everybody’s dad (when he was a kid) had gone to war. And so most guys between 18 and 40 put on green clothes and got on a boat, and did their thing. And then, the war was over (we won), and people forgot about it. It wasn’t really something people talked about all the time, or romanticized about, it was just this thing that happened. It was in their past, but it wasn’t a part of them. And Private Ryan is much the same way.
Tom Hanks’ character, Captain Miller, is an officer and the leader of a unit assigned to find and bring home James F. Ryan. Ryan’s three brothers have died in combat, and the Army figures it’s probably a nice gesture (and what P.R.!) to get him out of combat. Miller… well, we don’t know what to make of the guy besides that fact that he’s an able and efficient leader. And that’s it. His own men have no idea about his past, where he’s from, his old job before the war, hobbies, favorite movie, social diseases, nothing. But everyone notices Captain Miller’s nervous tic: his hand shakes. And he has no control over it. Out of the entire unit, a collection of personalities and attitudes and everything, Miller is the only true soldier. He was the one designed to be the tool of the military, an instrument. The rest of the team are regular guys who, like every other man in America, were sent to war. Miller shows his men no emotion, and follows his orders to the letter. Instead of complaining about his assignment to his men, he accepts his men’s gripes. Instead of circumventing an enemy position on his march, he attacks, because his ultimate job is to win the war. And Miller loses man after man, and somehow holds his composure. After taking a German machine gun nest out, the men realize Wade, their medic, is wounded and dying. And then, he’s lost. And Miller gets up and leaves as the men try to sort out bodies and tend to Wade’s body.
And we figure, like he has all along, Miller is going to pull out the map and figure out the next move. But instead, he pulls off his helmet, and sits down. And just loses it. He just starts crying. He stops after a moment to look over his shoulder, to see if, Jesus, if his men see him. They don’t, so he, well, finishes up. And the helmet goes back on, and he walks back, the soldier again.
And that’s the film in a nutshell. Miller spends his war as a soldier, trying to hide. After crying, he can’t help but up and just be a fucking person. He first sees that his men are about to execute a captured German, and the old Captain Miller would’ve shot him and told his men to get their shit together. This Captain Miller, John Miller, lets him go. The men freak out, and start arguing and screaming. And you think he’s lost control, but instead of the Captain taking control, John drops a bomb: the men had a pool going, about what Captain Miller did before the war.
Captain Miller: I’m a schoolteacher. I teach English composition… in this little town called Adley, Pennsylvania. The last eleven years, I’ve been at Thomas Alva Edison High School. I was a coach of the baseball team in the springtime. Back home, I tell people what I do for a living and they think well, now that figures. But over here, it’s a big, a big mystery. So, I guess I’ve changed some. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve changed so much my wife is even going to recognize me, whenever it is that I get back to her. And how I’ll ever be able to tell her about days like today. Ah, Ryan. I don’t know anything about Ryan. I don’t care. The man means nothing to me. It’s just a name. But if… you know if going to Rumelle and finding him so that he can go home. If that earns me the right to get back to my wife, then that’s my mission.
And it seems like nobody knows what to do. One guy’s about to up and desert, but… he stays. Because he could’ve walked out and quit on Captain Miller. But he can’t give up on John Miller.
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