This movie has nothing on Duke's The Longest Day. Am I the only one who thinks that the plot of this movie was absolute unrealistic nonsense? I can't believe that during the middle of WWII the Army would waste valuable lives and send men out to face their possible deaths just to try to get back one lousy, unimportant private.
I keep thinking of the scene from Duke's Sands of Iwo Jima where Duke refuses to let John Agar go out in the night to rescue their wounded comrade who is crying out for help because it's against orders to leave the lines. That, I believe, was a much more realistic attitude for people from the 1940's. That commitment to a "greater good" and a realization that sometimes personal feelings had to be laid aside for the sake of the overall war effort was what truly made them the "greatest generation."
If I'm not mistaken, both incidents you mention are based on actual events that occurred during WW2. I know that there was a case where a sole-surviving son was removed from combat because his brother (or brothers) had been killed in combat and the president (or Army) didn't want to leave the kid's family without at least one sibling. So they decided to remove the surviving son from danger. I think that's what "Saving Private Ryan" was based on.
And I've read that on some of the Pacific islands, the Japanese would try to lure Marines over for either capture or killing by pretending to be wounded comrades and calling out for help. The Duke's character, being the experienced sergeant he was, knew this and refused to let his men fall for it. I'm pretty sure that scene in "Sands of Iwo Jima" was also based on actual events.
