In the movie Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg creates a scene where the mother of the title character gets the horrible news about her other sons by showing a convoy of automobiles converging on her house, each carrying a representative of the military who will inform her that her children have died in the service of their country. According to the LA Times, such a scene was an anachronism: the military didn't start that practice until Vietnam, for the most part sending telegrams in earlier wars. The entire procedure of notifying the next of kin is quite moving, with the military assuming a responsibility for the lives of its own that one wishes the rest of the government would emulate.