Spielberg has triggered traumatic memories for so many veterans that a hotline has been set up to help them.
Counsellors at the US department of veterans' affairs say dozens of men who fought during the war suffered post traumatic stress disorder which for some has been revived by Saving Private Ryan. "Seeing that movie opens up the emotional floodgates," said William Weitz, a clinical psychologist at the Palm Beach branch of the veterans' affairs department. "50 years is nothing," Dr Weitz said, adding that many veterans vividly remember what happened in Normandy. One symptom of post traumatic stress disorder is flashbacks; another is feeling guilty for having survived.
At the national stress disorder centre in Vermont, Paula Schnurr, a psychiatrist, said many veterans had been surprised to be overcome by their memories, but she said it was essential for them to know this was a normal reaction. "Education can go a long way towards normalising the experience, which can be terrifying," she said.
With receipts of almost $29 million less than a week after it opened, the film has been hailed, alongside classics such as The Bridge On The River Kwai, as among the greatest war films.
The New York Times said: "This is as close as one generation can come to an artistic knowledge of war elicited from the first-hand experience of its elders."
Many reported local cinemas full of weeping elderly men. One said: "The world we live in now, the 1990s, has no idea how good we have it."