Marshall’s Decision to Look For and Save the Final Ryan Son (Saving Private Ryan)
I have a letter here, written a long time ago to a
Mrs. Bixby in Boston. So bear with me:
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 that would 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, 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,
Abraham Lincoln
The boy's alive.
We are going to send somebody to find him.
And we are going to get him the hell out of there.