<P> In Washington, D.C., at the U.S. War Department, General George Marshall learns that three of the four brothers of the Ryan family were killed in action and that the fourth son, James, has been parachuted somewhere over Normandy but is currently unable to be located . He is also informed that their mother will receive all three telegrams notifying her of her three sons' deaths on the same day . After reading Abraham Lincoln's Bixby letter aloud for his staff, he orders that James Ryan be found and returned home immediately . </P> <P> Three days after D - Day, Miller receives orders to find Ryan and bring him back from the front . He assembles six men from his company--T / Sgt . Mike Horvath, Privates First Class Richard Reiben and Adrian Caparzo, Privates Stanley Mellish and Danny Jackson, medic Irwin Wade--plus T / 5 Timothy Upham, a cartographer and interpreter borrowed from another unit . They move out to Neuville, where they meet a squad from the 101st Airborne Division, where Caparzo is killed by a German sniper, quickly taken out by Jackson . They locate a Private James Ryan but quickly learn he is not their man . They eventually encounter a friend of James Ryan, who tells them that he is defending an important bridge in the town of Ramelle . </P> <P> On the way to Ramelle, Miller decides to neutralize a German machine gun position at a derelict radar station, despite his men's misgivings; Wade is killed in the skirmish . Miller, at Upham's urging, declines to execute a surviving German soldier (nicknamed "Steamboat Willie") and sets him free on the condition that he surrender to the first Allied unit he encounters . Losing confidence in Miller's leadership, Reiben declares his intention to desert, prompting a confrontation with Horvath, which Miller defuses by disclosing his civilian background as a teacher, about which his men had set up a betting pool . Reiben reluctantly decides to stay . </P> <P> Outside Ramelle, Miller and the squad encounters a German half - track with troops and ambush them together with three paratroopers, one of whom is Ryan . In the town, Miller's squad find a small group of paratroopers preparing to defend the key bridge, and where Miller tells Ryan about his brothers and their orders to bring him home, with two of his men having been lost in finding him . He is distressed at the loss of his brothers, but asks Miller to tell his mother that he intends to stay "with the only brothers (he has) left ." Miller decides to join his unit with the paratroopers in defense of the bridge against the imminent German attack . Miller forms ambush positions throughout the ruined town, preparing to attack arriving tanks and infantry with mines, Molotov cocktails, detonation cords and "sticky bombs" made from socks filled with Composition B smeared with thick grease . </P>

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