The best (Anti-) war film I ever saw

Rating: 10/10 (4 November 1999)

I remember very good my feelings when I first saw the soldiers standing in the landing boat at the beginning--if I were born 40 or 50 years earlier, I could've been standing there myself, and I could feel the horror all of those men must have felt.
A lot of people call this film too US-centered, but I thought the film did every soldier in WWII justice. There were no good or bad soldiers in it, just poor fellows in one of the worst possible situation a young man can find himself in.
I could identify with every one of the guys in the platoon. If I would been forced into military service now, I would end up like Tom Hanks' character.
Someone wrote that the movie praises the USA for fighting good wars by showing the star spangled banner at the beginning and the end. Well, I didn't understood it that way. Could one really be proud of a country, who forces his young men into such a hell?