OK…watching this over the weekend on AMC, and the thought occurred to me…Tom Hanks and Co. make their way across France to find Ryan, losing two men along the way. When they find him, Ryan decides he wants to say. Admirable, yes…but it’s in violation of a direct order, not only from Capt. Miller, but from the Army Chief of Staff as well.
In the end, they all stay–again admirable—but in the ensuing battle, I think only Reiben and Upham survive.
Could they not have just left Ryan there? Most of the company didn’t survive, but Ryan does. As the movie ended, I couldn’t help but think, “Hey, Ryan…hope you realize your deciding to stay cost the lives of most of the men who were trying to save you”.
There might be some rules or customs of war which allow personnel to give up on a mission under particular circumstances but I don’t see any reasonable rule that would allow captain Miller to just say: “Well, he didn’t feel like coming back so whatcha gonna do?”. They had a legitimate order and could have forced him. The fact that Ryan wanted to stay is, in terms of the squad’s duties, irrelevant.
Of course Miller COULD have left Ryan behind. However, he would have been disobeying a direct order and therefore would likely have been arrested.
Private Ryan is not in disobedience of the order to go get him; he disobeys Miller’s order to come with him. Miller would be in disobedience by leaving without Ryan. By remaining to defend the town and trying to keep Ryan alive, he is trying to obey his orders without dragging Ryan away kicking and screaming.
The movie is a truly great one but in all honestly, Miller conceding so quickly to Ryan’s refusal to leave is a stupid, unnecessary error. It makes no sense that an experienced, battle-hardened officer would just shrug his shoulders and say “uh, okay.” What he WOULD say was “That’s a touching speech, Private, but I’ve got orders and you’re coming with us if I have to tie you up and carrying you like a prize hog. Get your shit and let’s get going.” You could have then either had Ryan put up too much of a fuss, or presented evidence Rummelle was too important to leave, or just had the Germans show up on the only road out of town, and you’d get the same basic movie without Miller’s weird reaction to Ryan.
Having said that, Miller’s attempt to do both this at once** is wholly consistent with his character and what we have seen him do before.** The hint that he will try to have it both ways is the attack on the machine gun nest, the one where they capture “Steamboat Willie.” His decision to storm the machine gun nest, despite it having nothing to do with their mission, leads to Wade’s death. Miller’s justification for this is “Our orders are to win the war,” and he’s not technically wrong; he has the freedom, absent direct orders to the contrary, to engage and destroy targets of opportunity en route to his primary mission. This battle, which takes place in the movie’s second act, foreshadows his decision to try to have it both ways in the third act, when he tried to both save Ryan and defend the Rummelle bridge, and Wade’s death at the machine gun nest foreshadows the deaths of most of the squad. Their deaths are not Ryan’s fault. They’re Miller’s fault. Miller could have dragged Ryan away tied up, or left; he chose to try to do both, as he had before.
The concept of an ordinary person like Miller being forced to sacrifice the lives of other men in the pursuit of missions is one of the underlying themes of the film; the movie begins with Miller leading men through the deathtrap of Omaha Beach, absolutely determined to get off the beach and into the German works. At some unseen point he leads one or more companies of men in an attack to destroy German 8.8cm guns that results in more deaths. He speaks to Sergeant Horvath about how many men have died under his command - a number he knows off by heart - and justifies it by theorizing that he is saving other lives by doing so. Miller is quite aware of what he’s doing and what the horrid costs are.
I haven’t seen the movie. When they found Ryan, did they have any means of communicating with the brass? Miller might not have had the authority himself to say “We’re going to leave Ryan behind because that’s what he wants”, but someone certainly did. And it seems reasonable to me for Miller to have contacted that someone for clarifying orders, if possible.
This is mere days after the landing at Normandie. The movie depicts the massive amount of confusion and lack of communication/coordination going on. Communicating with the “brass” was not an option.
And more importantly, the decision/order to return Ryan home came from on high. This was not Ryan’s decision to make. This was all about PR: they were going to do their best that this one mother does not lose all her sons in the war. So even if they had been able to get through to the brass, the order would have been “haul him back in chains if you need to, but get him back !”
The only option I see is Miller’s choice to start heading back once they find Ryan, or to stay and fight the finale battle. I think he could have made either call and not been faulted either way. But his mission, his orders, were to bring Ryan back. Had Ryan continued to resist, I think their options would have been 1) take Ryan by force, 2) not bring Ryan back and suffer the consequences of not obeying an order, or 3) kill him and cover up the truth with “he was already dead”.
Or 4) explain to Ryan that winning the war won’t happen if morale back home takes too big a hit, and the news of a mother losing all her sons is just such a big hit, so the patriotic and decent thing to do is to come along now. As important as this one bridge might be, the American resolve to keep fighting is even more important.
(That said, I haven’t seen the movie in a while and don’t recall if Miller said anything to Ryan beyond ‘this is the order I was given’ and ‘think of your mother,’ if indeed he did say those things.)
Miller was in the field in France. The orders came from the War Department in DC. I don’t see how they could have checked with HQ.
Captain Miller: Pvt. Ryan won’t come with me.
General Bigshot: Captain Miller, are you telling me that you cannot get a buck private to follow your order?
Captain Miller: Uuuuuhhhhh.
General Bigshot: Get you and Ryan back here on the double. Don’t let those silly captain’s bars weigh you down. You won’t be needing them much longer.
To be fair, i think it is Mike’s instigation that cinches the decision
“* I don’t know. Part of me thinks the kid’s right. He asks what he’s done to deserve this. He wants to stay here, fine. Let’s leave him and go home. But then another part of me thinks, what if by some miracle we stay, then actually make it out of here. Someday we might look back on this and decide that saving Private Ryan was the one decent thing we were able to pull out of this whole godawful, shitty mess. Like you said, Captain, maybe we do that, we all earn the right to go home.*”
That wasn’t how it came off to me.
To paraphrase, Miller is saying “I tell myself this lie so that i can open my eyes and keep going, otherwise i am about 2 seconds away from coming totally unglued”
To me he was not actually justifying, i don’t feel he believes it.
I feel he is just using it to wrap himself tight because he is just a hair away from falling apart.
*You see, when… when you end up killing one of your men, you see, you tell yourself it happened so you could save the lives of two or three or ten others. Maybe a hundred others. Do you know how many men I’ve lost under my command?
Ninety-four. But that means I’ve saved the lives of ten times that many, doesn’t it? Maybe even 20, right? Twenty times as many? And that’s how simple it is. That’s how you… that’s how you rationalize making the choice between the mission and the man.*
Cormac 262 wrote: The only option I see is Miller’s choice to start heading back once they find Ryan
I think this is an excellent point. They didn’t find Ryan at the bridge. They found him in that field after the brief skirmish with the German tank probe. They are introduced, but still in the field. The next thing you know, Miller, Ryan, et al are at the bridge in Ramelle and it’s only then that they tell Ryan about his brothers.
I would think in real life, there’s no way they would have gone back to the bridge and waited to tell him. For one, Miller and the squad were emotionally drained and desperate to end the mission, and they had found who they were looking for. They would have told him immediately after they found him, “son your coming with us, end of story.”