In 1998, I sat in a movie theater watching a film set during World War II. Thirty minutes in, the movie turned from scenes of war to a barren yet majestic countryside beneath a superb Iowa sky — a day so perfect it seemed to connect the ground of earth to the glories of heaven. Then, rolling along a dirt road, a dark gray car entered the frame moving toward a farm in the distance — a quintessentially American farm.
The scene changed. Inside the farmhouse, a woman stood washing dishes. A shadow of apprehension haunted her eyes. Intent on her work, she did not notice the day’s glory or the approaching car. But the camera looking from behind the woman through the window over the sink, saw both. It was a gray government car — Department of War — now traveling up her driveway. Finally, she saw it, and moved from the kitchen into the living room, where she paused to look out the screen door. She briefly stood, silhouetted against the bright day beyond the door, then stepped outside.
The government car — an Army car — rolled up to the house, stopping just beyond the porch. Two uniformed men emerged from it — one in a military uniform and the other in the uniform of a priest. Before they had spoken a word, she felt the message they carried and collapsed onto the wooden floor of the porch.
Nothing could seem further from war than this picturesque Iowa farm. But this was the American homefront of World War II. When her sons left Iowa to fight for their country and for freedom, Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima, Auschwitz, and Normandy had come to Iowa. The character is about to learn that three of those four sons have been killed in action.
This scene from Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan takes place about half an hour into the movie. Most of that first half hour featured a visceral, ocean-and-sand-level view of the D-Day invasion at Normandy. The 1962 film, The Longest Day, gave huge, sweeping panoramas of that world-changing event. But Steven Spielberg brought us in close. He filled our eyes and ears with the terrible sights and sounds of war — a baptism by immersion into an environment thick with the horror of men dying and of death impending.
On that day in real life, 2,501 Americans — most of them young — died on or near those beaches. At Pearl Harbor, thirty months before, 2,403 Americans died. Those were just the American deaths in two battles of one war. Approximately 1.3 million US soldiers and service members have died in all major wars combined since the Revolutionary War — each one a real, flesh-and-blood human being with real dreams and real lives they hoped to come home to. Like Spielberg’s fictional story, they all had mothers — most still alive. Each death felt as bad to their mothers as a similar loss would feel to you. They all had families of one kind or another. Some had sweethearts or spouses — some had children they never met.
We honor our nation and its founders on Independence Day. We honor the military on Veterans Day. But our forebears wisely set aside another day — Memorial Day — to specifically remember those who gave their lives for their country and their countrymen.
I usually watch the end credits at movies, but most people don’t. Saving Private Ryan was different. Most of this audience stayed. Soft sobs mixed with the music. As the credits wound down, most people finally left. After the film completely stopped and the lights came up, three groups of five to ten people were still in the theater. At the center of each group sat a white-haired sobbing man. The people surrounding them were apparently family members, or just kindhearted moviegoers, offering support.
The movie ended with survivor’s guilt and its question. Why am I alive when others died? Do I deserve their sacrifice? That question applies to us all. And the answer is, “No.”
Fallen heroes bequeathed to each American a gift of grace — an unmerited but beautiful birthright. Don’t misunderstand, this nation — like every nation — is flawed. But America’s freedoms give its citizens the opportunity to make things better. We didn’t earn our birthright. How could we? We weren’t alive yet. For that reason, our history and rights may seem ethereal or abstract. But they are real, and they are mighty. That’s why it’s heartbreaking that so many people now scorn this amazing heritage.
Jesus said in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” And then He became the ultimate example of that love. Christians remember Him and His sacrifice every time we partake of communion. America sets aside one day a year to remember those who gave their lives for our country. On that day at least, may we remember what a very big deal each of their lives was and the magnificent gift their sacrifices conferred on us.
