The film opens with the Allied invasion on the Normandy beach on June 6, 1944. Cpt. Miller and members of the 2nd Ranger Battalion fight to secure the beachhead. During the invasion, two brothers are killed in action. Earlier, the third brother was killed in New Guinea. The mother of the brothers is about to receive the grave telegrams at the same day. The United States Army Chief of Staff, George C. Marshall, is given an opportunity to alleviate some of her grief when he finds out that there was also a fourth brother, Private James Ryan, who went missing somewhere in France. He sends Cpt. Miller and seven other people from the 2nd Ranger Battalion to go look for him and bring him back to his mother.—ahmetkozan