Searching for Private Ryan
A Sermon Given
by The Rev. Roger Fritts
on November 8, 1998
at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Bethesda, Maryland
The central event of this century was World War II.
- Imagine, just as an example, how many of us have benefitted from the use of penicillin. The problems of producing
penicillin in large amounts were solved under the pressure of the war.
- If you are my age, born after the war, you may be alive, as I am, because your parents met during the war.
- If you are older, you may recall being a child during the war. You may recall how the war shaped your values.
- If you were an adult during the war, you know better then I, how the war shaped your entire life.
And think of this church. Before World War II there was one Unitarian Congregation in Washington, D.C. with
perhaps a hundred people attending services. But during the war the population of the area grew dramatically and with
it the All Souls Unitarian Church on 16th and Harvard. After the war Unitarian Churches were established around the
city to serve the young adults who had moved to this area because of the war.
Because the war played such a central role in all of our lives, this summer when the movie "Saving Private Ryan" came
out, I made a point of going to see it. Before going to the movie I read several reviews:
One critic wrote in the Washington Post: "This is simply the greatest war movie ever made."
Another said: "Saving Private Ryan contains the most powerful combat sequence ever put on film."
And a third wrote: "Steven Spielberg's drama is second to none as a vivid, realistic and bloody portrait of armed
conflict."
The reviewers were not exaggerating. A few minutes into the movie I was strongly tempted to close my eyes or cover
my ears, or get up and walk out.
The words of a reviewer flashed through my mind. She had written:
Two-thirds of the way through "Saving Private Ryan," my friend and I got up to go to the bathroom, ducking down in
the row amidst gunfire so loud that our ears were ringing. Once outside, my friend told me that she was going home.
Another woman came out of one of the bathroom stalls, crying; she said she didn't want to go back in.
"Saving Private Ryan" is a violent movie. From the moment the American soldiers, led by Captain John Miller played
by Tom Hanks, disembark on the shores of Omaha Beach June 6, 1944, we watch young men die. The night before the
landing allied bombers were supposed to have destroyed massive German fortifications that lined the cliffs above the
beaches. However, dense cloud coverage caused the planes to miss most of their designated targets. The next morning
thousands of soldiers hit the shores of France. Attacking heavily fortified positions, the Americans suffered twenty-four
hundred casualties at Omaha Beach.
In the opening sequence of the movie, we see one of the most devastating stories ever committed to film. It is difficult
to endure, yet alone describe.
The landing craft pulls near the beach. A door drops down. A German machine gun opens up. It kills everyone in the
front line of the boat. Men desperately jump off the sides of the boat into the water. The camera is under water, and
we see bullets whiz by like tiny streaks of fire. We hear them hiss through the surf making a cool, scary sound, killing
men underwater as they struggle to unstrap their cumbersome equipment.
The camera is wading toward the beach, with the quiet sound of the roiling waves. As the camera breaks the water, we
hear the deafening noise of the machine guns firing and the land mines exploding. Suddenly a wave, red with blood,
washes over the camera and all is silent again, just a moment. Then the camera is out of the water and we are standing
on Omaha Beach. Next the camera is running, twisting on the beach, chaotic flashes of light coming from half-seen
points on the cliffs, the ground rising and coming down, explosions going off. Men are shouting out orders, but we
cannot make out what they are saying. Although it's just a movie, I want to go home.
It is the most violent, gory, visceral representation of war that I have ever witnessed on the screen. Steven Spielberg
spares the viewer little of the horrors of battle, using every tactic at his disposal to convey the chaos and suffering. The
audience is presented with images of bodies cut to pieces by bullets, limbs blown off, and entrails spilling out. Blood
sticks to the lens of the camera. Bullets whiz around us. Actions go in and out of focus, or slow to a near standstill.
Blood snakes down through the sand into the water and, when the tide comes in, with the waves breaking on the
body-strewn beach, the water is crimson.
After being plunged into this overwhelming, nightmarish mayhem, I began to wonder why was I watching this.
According to Spielberg, by seeing his movie he hopes we can learn "how bad it was for the men who survived, as well
as those who perished" so we can "honor [World War II veterans] with the truth."
It was a major success. With receipts of almost $29 million less than a week after it opened, reviewers have hailed the
film, as among the greatest war films. The New York Times said: "This is as close as one generation can come to an
artistic knowledge of war elicited from the first-hand experience of its elders." Many have reported local cinemas full
of weeping elderly men. One said: "The people in world we live in now, in the 1990s, have no idea how good we have
it." The Washington Post reports that after the movie came out, the number of persons visiting the battle sites and
cemeteries in Normandy increased enormously.
The movie has triggered traumatic memories for so many veterans that a hotline has been set up to help them.
Counselors at the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs say dozens of men who fought during the war and suffered post
traumatic stress disorder found their illness revived by "Saving Private Ryan." One symptom of post-traumatic stress is
feeling guilty for having survived. This theme of survivor guilt is expressed at the end of the movie by an old man
visiting an American cemetery in France.
The plot is simple. The battle at Omaha Beach ends in victory about thirty minutes into the movie. After the battle,
General Marshall sends out a group of soldiers to find Private James Ryan and send him home. The war has killed all
three of Private Ryan's brothers. He is the only surviving son. Eventually the searchers find Private Ryan and join
with him in a critical battle against the Germans.
This fictional story has its roots in a true event. About nine days after the invasion of Normandy, an American private
in France named Fritz Niland, went to visit the 82nd Airborne to see his brother. There Niland learned that the Germans
had killed his brother on D-Day.
Fritz Niland next hitched a ride to the 4th Infantry Division position, to see his other brother who was a platoon leader.
When he arrived, Fritz heard that the Germans had also killed his second brother on D-Day, on Utah Beach.
With this terrible news Fritz Niland returned to his own company. When he arrived, a chaplain, Father Francis
Simpson, told Fritz that his third brother, a pilot in Burma, had been shot down. He was missing and presumed dead.
Fritz's mother back in the town of Tonawanda, New York had received all three telegrams from the War Department
the same day. As the sole surviving son, the Army wanted to remove Fritz from the combat zone as soon as possible.
Father Simpson escorted Fritz to Utah Beach, where a plane flew him to London on the first leg of his return to the
United States. Later Fritz discovered that the brother who was shot down in Burma had actually survived. This true
story of Fritz Niland became the basis of the fictional story "Saving Private Ryan."
I have mixed feelings about the film. Most of us never went to war, and we learned of its horrors only through the
reports of those who did or through books or movies. As a result we can never really understand what it was like for
the people who were there. No movie, no book, can recreate the experience. Still, it is good for us to get some idea of
what war is really like. I want to believe that as this movie is shown around the world, it will convince young men to
think before they march into battle.
However, after the battle at Omaha Beach, the movie deteriorates into a conventional war film. It became a film about
the relationships of eight men, each representing the typical ethnic, or regional types found in classic American war
movies. In addition to the Captain:
- There is the loudmouth cynic from Brooklyn,
- the loyal sergeant,
- the conscientious medic,
- the wisecracking Jew,
- the big-hearted Italian,
- the bookish coward,
- and the Southern bible-quoting sharpshooter.
Although the movie shows the suffering of war more graphically then ever before, I worry that the result is just another
military recruiting film. I worry that teenage boys who see "Saving Private Ryan" may come out thinking that wartime
combat is heroic, courageous, and "cool." I fear that young men watching this movie will think what they have
throughout the history of war: "Of course," the young men think, "lots of people die, but I will not be one of them."
"Saving Private Ryan" explores the central event of this century. It expresses the mixed feelings Americans have about
war at the end of the twentieth century:
- War is hell; war is absurd.
- war is necessary; war is unnecessary.
- war is uplifting; war is depressing.
- war is a lesson in morality, war is a lesson in immorality.
I looked for some suggestions about alternatives to violence and found none. As a child from my mother who came
from the Mennonite tradition I learned about traditional Mennonite pacifism. My father had been a conscientious
objector during World War II, and he taught me about his opposition to war. My minister had been a Quaker before
becoming a Unitarian Universalist. He taught me that each of us has a spark of divinity in our souls that, if properly
nurtured, can help us develop into sensitive and compassionate people. As a teenager I came to believe that no person
has the right to take the life of another human being.
In the past thirty years my faith in the divinity of all human beings and in the sacredness of life has continued.
However, I am not blind to the evil that is in human beings. We can act alone, or in groups, out of greed, selfishness,
arrogance, and cruelty. Such behavior is evil. Dictatorships are evil. Censorship is evil. The invasion of one country
by another country is evil. The enslavement, or murder of people because of their race or religion is evil.
Nevertheless, an unwillingness to see the spark of divinity in others is also evil. Once I refuse to see this spark of the
divine in each person, once I refuse to see this humanity, this potential to do well, no matter how hidden it might be, I
am saying that a person is totally evil. Once this is done I no longer have any desire or opportunity to change that
person except by force.
Therefore, I continue to believe that no person is irretrievably evil. I continue to believe in the spark of divinity, the
potential for good in every human being.
I remember reading many years ago (I do not have the source) that Gandhi said, "resisting evil violently is better then
not resisting evil at all." However, Gandhi went on to say "resisting evil non-violently is better then resisting evil
violently."
I agree. I do not question the morality of those in the military who fight to resist evil. However, I believe it is far
better to use our wisdom and creativity to invent non-violent ways to resist evil. Too often we revert to the simple
solution of war and bombs. Other approaches, while not as emotionally satisfying in the short run, are likely to lead to
much less suffering and much less loss of life over time.
When I left the theater after the movie it was dark. I drove home with the explosions bursting in my head. In the next
few weeks I visited Unitarian Churches in Hungary and Romania and I watched as the United States came close to
bombing Yugoslavia. I was in Budapest when Americans evacuated Belgrade. I rejoiced when diplomats
negotiated an agreement for the withdrawal of Serb troops in Kosovo. Back at home I followed reports in
the newspaper of the negotiation between the Israelis and the Palestinians at a conference center here in
Maryland. I rejoiced when they reached agreement. Although Steven Spielberg is unlikely to make a
movie about them, my heros are the diplomats who work hard to reach agreements that avoid violent
confrontations.
As I read about the tensions between the United States and Iraq, I hope that somehow a creative way
can be found to reach a nonviolent solution. Back during the Gulf War in 1991, I had an Iraqi family in
the congregation I served in Illinois. Members of their extended family back in Bagdad had been
drafted into the Iraqi army. The mother said to me once: "The war is about oil and land and the egos of
the leaders. Nevertheless, the young men who do not have any quarrel with each other, are the ones
who will die." Young men like those in the movie, "Saving Private Ryan."
Resisting evil violently is better then not to resist at all, but resisting evil non-violently is best. This
Sunday before our national holiday of Veterans Day, I hope the terrible sights of war in the movie "Saving Private
Ryan," will encourage people everywhere to follow Gandhi's advice.
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