SAVING PRIVATE RYAN 271
Naval Hospital in Oahu, Hawaii. One eve ning in 1945 Wayne made a personal
appearance before badly wounded survivors of the Battle of Okinawa: “the cur-
tains parted and out stepped John Wayne, wearing a cowboy outfit... He grinned
his aw- shucks grin, passed a hand over his face and said, ‘Hi ya, guys!’ He was
greeted by a stony silence. Then somebody booed. Suddenly every one was booing.
This man was a symbol of the fake machismo we had come to hate, and we weren’t
going to listen to him. He tried and tried to make himself heard, but we drowned
him out, and eventually he quit and left” (Manchester, 1987, p. 84). Five years later
Manchester and another Marine were ejected from a movie theater for laughing
hysterically during a screening of Sands of Iwo Jima. In the end, though, hegemonic
pro- war, pro- patria ideology prevailed. At an American Legion Convention in
Miami, Florida (17 October 1951), six months after being sacked by President Tru-
man for insubordination, Gen. Douglas MacArthur demonstrated he was laugh-
ably oblivious as to the real combat experiences of rank- and- file U.S. ser vicemen
in WWII when he told John Wayne, “You represent the American ser viceman
better than the American ser viceman himself” (quoted in Davis, 1998, p. 118).
Wayne himself remained equally oblivious to his real status as a faux warrior. In
later years he disingenuously declared “The Marines and all the American Armed
Forces were quite proud of my portrayal of Stryker” (Suid, 2001, p. 129).
Reel History Versus Real History
There is surprisingly little combat depicted in Sands of Iwo Jima but some of it
consists of actual footage taken by Signal Corps cameramen during the fighting
on Tarawa and Iwo Jima. Furthermore, a number of actual soldiers portrayed
themselves in the film: Lt. Gen. Holland M. Smith (ret.), the 5th Amphibious
Corps commander (also one of the film’s technical advisors); Medal of Honor
winner Col. David M. Shoup, USMC; Capt. Harold G. Schrier, USMC, who com-
manded the Marines on Mt. Suribachi; Lt. Col. H. P. Crowe, USMC, a battalion
commander on Tarawa; and Pfc. Rene A. Gagnon, Pfc. Ira H. Hayes, and PM 3/c
John H. Bradley, three of the flag raisers on Mt. Suribachi. At 42, John Wayne was
rather old to play the part of a WWII Marine sergeant, but screenwriters Harry
Brown and Jimmy Grant make Stryker a believably flawed character— not quite
the cardboard hero he so often played.
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Synopsis
Saving Private Ryan is an American war epic set during and immediately after the
invasion of Normandy ( June 1944) in World War II. Written by Robert Rodat and
directed by Steven Spielberg, the film follows U.S. Army Rangers Capt. John H.
Miller (Tom Hanks) who commands a squad (Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry
Pepper, Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Adam Goldberg, and Jeremy Davies) searching
for paratrooper James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon), the last surviving brother of
four U.S. ser vicemen.