Christian Women in Leadership

more on saving private ryan movie

this morning I was thinking about the end of the movie. private ryan is saved, and also they preserve the bridge from being used to transport German tanks, but this is at the expense of the Captain's life. Also, I am struck by the character in the film, Jackson, the guy who prays, but that is another subject.

At the end of the movie, the Captain says to Private Ryan, "You were worth it," as he is dying; though wounded he is still able to fire at the enemy several more times with a handgun. Ironically, the Captain is wounded by the German soldier who they had decided, graciously, to let go. They told him to turn himself in as a prisoner of war, but instead he went "back into circulation." (When can you trust your enemy? who knows.)

Anyway, many ideas can be generated from this movie, but today what really struck me were the ideas of submission to authority. For example, when the soldiers finally find Private Ryan, tell him of the deaths of his 3 brothers, Ryan does not want to abandon his duty to preserve the bridge. Ryan doesn't want to deviate from the "mission" of the war (to win the war) from which he signed up, maybe to lose his life, in the first place.

Suddenly, stuck with this irony--that the group should risk all of their lives and lose two soldiers in the process to find this one soldier--one man asks the Captain, "What are your orders now, Captain?"

I guess their mission did not make sense from the beginning, and was the opposite of winning the war. As one of his soldier's said when they were first told of the mission, "Fold your entire company into another company. How can they do that?" "It wasn't my company, it was the army's, at least that's what they told me, the Captain said. "To risk all of their lives to ease the suffering of one mother."As one of the soldiers put it--they all had mothers, too!

For some reason, winning the war became secondary to saving Private Ryan. They didn't want to do it, and they all complained, but it was their orders and they all submitted.

In the end, Private Ryan kept them all to save the bridge since he would not leave, and the other soldiers could not leave either since it was their orders to save him. Perhaps the bridge would have been destoyed if not for those extra soldiers and the ideas of the Captain. In the movie (and I do realize that it is only a movie), they almost destroy the bridge, but then the American reinforcements arrive just before they have a chance to.

So really it is Private Ryan who is leading them, and without Private Ryan staying, and thereby keeping the other soldiers with him, perhaps they would not have saved the bridge, and thus helped win the war.

posted by the princess @ 11/16/2004 07:00:00 AM