It also can be every bit as difficult to watch. Most difficult of all, perhaps, is the very beginning of the flashback. Spielberg slams us back to June 1944. He puts us in the middle of the carnage as American troops battle for a foothold on Omaha Beach. Lives and limbs are blown away by the constant shelling and machine-gun fire.
Wounded men cry for help.
The shore line turns red from the spilled American blood. It is intense. It is gruesome. It is Spielberg's approximation of war. And it is necessary.