The greatest man (men) I (we) ever knew

My grandfather was the greatest man I've ever known. A testimony to my grandfather's quality is the fact that so many other people would say the same thing about him.

He lived a long, full life, and I always got the impression that he was happy. He loved his family, he seemed to be friends with everyone in a 30-mile radius of him, and his days were full of travel and experiences that many won't have for themselves.

Despite this, up until the day he passed he spoke of nothing as much as his experiences in World War II. His years spent on a destroyer in the Pacific were the ones that left the most lasting impression, and not in any traumatic fashion. As aa younger person, I never quite understood how things done out in the middle of the ocean 40 or 50 years ago could still be so interesting.

I saw SAVING PRIVATE RYAN the other night at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I've seen the film more times than I can count, but it was the first time I'd revisited it in a while. As I saw it with a little more persepctive brought on by age, I was amazed at how much it reminded me of my grandfather.

RYAN is the best war film ever made because it is the most human war film ever made. The battle sequences that bookend the film aren't exhilarating, they're terrifying. The soldiers who are shredded by German machine guns on D-Day aren't the paper targets that pop up in a more traditional "action film." They represent the very real Americans who not only were asked but volunteered to do the same thing 65 years ago.

By the time the men from the 2nd Ranger Batallion find Ryan in Ramelle, two of their own have died, and I desperately want the remaining to standfast and make it home. The battle over the bridge Ryan declines his ticket home in order to defend would qualify as one of the most exciting sequences in cinematic history if I didn't cringe every time another of Capt. John Miller's succumbs to the German onslaught.

My blood used to boil during the Ramelle sequence when the cowardly Upham allows a couple of his mates to die because he's paralyzed with fear. Monday, however, was the first time I felt sympathy toward him. He's scrawny and meek; A scholar, not a warrior. He simply isn't built for combat the way the elite Rangers he's trailing through occupied territory are.

Despite his shortcomings, he volunteered for duty nonetheless. His greatest asset is his brains, so he served by drawing maps and translating in both German and French. Putting a man like him in combat is a mistake, as his inaction in battle proves, but he wasn't supposed to be there in the first place. He was thrust into a situation he isn't equipped to handle, but it's a situation he found himself in only because he didn't allow his cowardice to keep him from contributing to the war effort. And although he doesn't pay with his life as most of the other Rangers do, he pays the cost of war with his humanity as he holds "Steamboat Willie" and a cache of surrendering Germans at gunpoint.

The press told tales of RYAN's cathartic nature for WWII vets, particularly those who were at Normandy, when the film was new. The men who couldn't or didn't want to speak of their experiences in the decades that had passed found someone who eloquently told their story and gave the rest of us a sense of what it was like to be there.

I imagine they embraced the film because it served as a reminder that these extraordinary things really were done by ordinary men, as trite as that sounds, and they were done simply because it was the right thing to do. In an era where our government has perverted the truth to serve their own desires by creating the perception of danger and whipping up a war out of thin air, it may be easy to forget that these men fought because the world truly was in danger from an evil force and an entire race of people was horrifyingly being driven to exintction. I've yet to see how the thousands of American and Iraqi lives that Chaney's war has claimed has made my life any better or safer, but the fact that I can work, play and worship the way I do or the mere presence of any of my Jewish friends is a reminder of what was gained during World War II.

My grandfather was one of the men who just did what was right, and I imagine most people around 30 have people like him in their family. The fact that men like them and countless others were able to do their duty in the face of the horrors RYAN illustrates, and then come home to be fine men of industry, husbands, fathers and grandtathers is yet another testament to their and my grandfather's greatness.

CURRENTLY LISTENING: Iron Maiden - Number of the Beast