"War, Gentlemen, is hell!"

Rating: 10/10 (13 November 2005)

The above, ^, is a quote by the famous Union general William T. Sherman. Saving Private Ryan shows the hell, fog, and confusion of war. What else can I say? How about Based on a true story? It was. In the brief scene with General Marshall, where he reads a letter to a Mrs. Nieland in Boston, one signed by Abraham Lincoln, it's not General Marshall, played by Dale Dye, a former Marine captain, who's reading it. It's John de Lancie, Star Trek's Q, who's the uncredited letter reader. It opens with an older Ryan and his family at the American cemetery in Normandy. He's at the grave of Captain John H. Miller, the man who saved his life, in Normandy in 1944. So what's the message of Saving Private Ryan? Since I opened this review with a quote from General Sherman, why don't I close it with one from the Book of John? "Greater love hath no man than this: That he lay down his life for his friends." Maybe I should paraphrase the epitaph on an unknown Marine who died on Guadalcanal. "When he gets to heaven, to St. Peter he will tell: 'Another soldier reporting, sir. I've served my time in hell."