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Name: ____________________________ Period: ____Saving Private Ryan: A Historical Analysis4688006-15200SUPREME HEADQUARTERSALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCESoldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is will trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.right508000But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory! I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking. What are General Eisenhower’s expectations of the men storming the beaches of Normandy?If you were one of the soldiers receiving this letter, how would you have felt about it?In thinking about the first few minutes of the film: how would you have felt as a U.S. soldier conducting an amphibious landing and assault of Omaha Beach?Look at the photograph of a defensive structure known as “Rommel’s Asparagus.” These were used to damage the hulls of landing sea craft. What do you notice about it compared to how they are depicted in the film?Robert Edlin was a member of the 2nd Ranger Battalion that joined the first wave of the assault on Omaha Beach. We join his story as his assault-craft becomes mired on a sandbar:"Our assault boat hit a sandbar. I looked over the ramp and we were at least seventy-five yards from the shore, and we had hoped for a dry landing. I told the coxswain [boat captain], "Try to get in further!" He screamed he couldn't. That British seaman had all the guts in the world but couldn't get off the sandbar. I told him to drop the ramp or we were going to die right there.We had been trained for years not to go off the front of the ramp, because the boat might get rocked by a wave and run over you. So we went off the sides. I looked to my right and saw a B-Company boat next to us with Lt. Bob Fitzsimmons, a good friend, take a direct hit on the ramp from a mortar or mine. I thought, there goes half of B Company.It was cold, miserably cold, even though it was June. The water temperature was probably forty-five or fifty degrees. It was up to my shoulders when I went in, and I saw men sinking all about me. I tried to grab a couple, but my job was to get on in and get to the guns. There were bodies from the 6th floating everywhere. They were face down in the water with packs still on their backs. They had inflated their life jackets. Fortunately, most of the Rangers did not inflate theirs or they also might have turned over and drowned.I began to run with my rifle in front of me. I went directly across the beach to try to get to the seaway. In front of me was part of the 6th Infantry, pinned down and lying behind beach obstacles. They hadn't made it to the seaway. I kept screaming at them, 'You have to get up and go! You gotta get up and go!' But they didn't. They were worn out and defeated completely. There wasn't any time to help them.I continued across the beach. There were mines and obstacles all up and down the beach. The air corps had missed it entirely. There were no shell holes in which to take cover. The mines had not been detonated. Absolutely nothing that had been planned for that part of the beach had worked. I knew that [the beach] was going to be a hellhole -- and it was!When I was about twenty yards from the seaway, I was hit by what I assume was a sniper bullet. It shattered and broke my right leg. I thought, well, I've got a Purple Heart. I fell, and as I did, it was like a searing hot poker rammed into my leg. My rifle fell ten feet or so in front of me. I crawled forward to get to it, picked it up, and as I rose on my left leg, another burst of I think machine gun fire tore the muscles out of that leg, knocking me down again.I lay there for seconds, looked ahead, and saw several Rangers lying there. One was Butch Bladorn from Wisconsin. I screamed at Butch, “Get up and run!” Butch, a big, powerful man, just looked back and said, “I can't...” I got up and hobbled towards him. I was going to kick him in the ass and get him off the beach. He was lying on his stomach, his face in the sand. Then I saw the blood coming out of his back. I realized he had been hit in the stomach and the bullet had come out his spine and he was completely immobilized. Even then I was sorry for screaming at him but I didn't have time to stop and help him. I thought, well, that's the end of Butch. Fortunately, it wasn't. He became a farmer in Wisconsin.”Based on Edin’s account, do you think the director (Steven Spielberg) portrayed this event accurately? What grade would you give him? Explain.“Executive Mansion,Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.Dear Madam,I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,A. Lincoln.”Pvt. Reiben: “…I got a mother, you got a mother, the sarge has got a mother. I'll bet that even the Captain's got a mother.?[Looks at Cpt. Miller]?Well, maybe not the Captain, but the rest of us have got mothers!”Do you think that the mission to save Private Ryan, one soldier, is worth risking the lives of eight others? What rationale did Captain Miller give to his men to justify the mission?What were your reactions to some of the religious connections made in the film? [Examples: the American sniper who always prayed to God before he shot someone; the Jewish soldier who taunted the German POWs; or the quote, “If God be for us, who could be against us?”]How did you feel about Captain Miller’s decision to stop and storm the radar tower and bunker? Do you think he would have done something differently if he had known the outcome?Why did Miller decide to let the German soldier go free? Was this a good decision?What are your thoughts on the following quote from the movie?“Just know, every man I kill the further away from home I feel.”Why were some of the soldiers resentful of Private Ryan? When they finally found Private Ryan did their opinions change? Why?Throughout the film we see Captain Miller noticeably shaking, hesitating, and having moments where he feels “cloudy, frozen, and unable to make his body work.” These symptoms are signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – a condition where traumatic experiences or prolonged exposure to stressful conditions actually “rewires” the brain. What traumatic experiences do we see Captain Miller and his men go through that might have played a role in “rewiring” their brains?PTSD was not adequately understood until very recently (2000s). How did Miller’s men react to witnessing the changes they saw in him?Throughout American history, doctors have used different terminology to describe the same symptoms we now associate with PTSD. Some of these terms have been “stress syndrome, homesickness, marching fatigue, nostalgia, soldier’s heart, shell shock, battle fatigue, combat stress reaction, war neurosis” and many others. Are there any running themes that link these terms together?Short-Essay: In at least one full paragraph, what do you think the director’s (Steven Spielberg) overall message is for this film? Provide evidence from the film to support your answer. ................
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