Newsmax contributor Paige Donner lives in Paris, and filed this first-person account of the 75th anniversary commemoration of the D-Day invasion that marked the beginning of the end of WWII:
U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking from the American Battle Monuments Commission podium at the American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France, declared that he felt honored to be in the company of heroes.
"The men behind me," he observed, referring to the 160 WWII Veterans, including more than 60 D-Day survivors, seated behind him, "will tell you that they are just the lucky ones. As one of them recently put it, 'All the heroes are buried here.'"
They had flown across oceans to be at this place on this 75th anniversary of D-Day.
The American Cemetery in Normandy is a cherished historic site just above Omaha Beach marking the site of the débarquement by the allied forces on June 6, 1944. It is the resting place for 9,388 American service members, many of them as just 18 or 19 years old, who sacrificed their lives to the cause of freedom.
Among those who came to pay homage to them Thursday were survivors such as 94-year-old Private First Class Russell Pickett.
Pickett was 19 on D-Day. He remembers holding a flame thrower and sitting on the side of a Higgins boat as it crept toward Omaha Beach. Then he heard a muffled explosion.
"Just before our boat touched down," he told Time.com, "we sunk."
Fortunate not to have drowned, Pickett lost consciousness and woke up lying on the beach gazing up at the clouds. He recalls his ears ringing with a "constant huge roar."
Wounded in the first wave that hit Omaha Beach, Pickett was loaded onto a boat and transported back to England. A week later, he rejoined his unit and resumed the fight. On Thursday he returned to pay his respects to those who never made the trip back home.
"You honor us with your presence here today," Trump told the vets in a speech generally lauded as perhaps the finest of his presidency. "You are the pride of our nation and the glory of our hearts. You are some of the greatest Americans who will ever live."
He then acknowledged by name several more surviving war veteran heroes, including former Army medic Arnold Raymond "Ray" Lambert, who served in the 16th Infantry Regiment of the "The Big Red One," the Army's First Division.
At 98 years old, Lambert acknowledged that it's likely the last time he will come to Normandy.
"They came here and saved freedom," said Trump.
About 12,000 dignitaries, patriots, and families of service members were on hand for the observance. The VIP seating included Trump's sons Don Jr. and Eric, as well as U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and GOP Sens. James Lankford of Oklahoma and John Barrasso of Wyoming.
Many of the veterans were in wheelchairs and wore hats denoting military decorations and D-Day Survivor status. Each time the president called one out by name, they received applause, and often standing ovations.
Every one of the 9,388 graves at the America cemetery here in Normandy has been adopted by a French family who regularly visits the grave and offers their prayers and respects.
"Today, America embraces the French people and thanks you for honoring our beloved dead," noted Trump.
Retired Maj. Gen. William Matz Jr., secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission, noted in his speech at the podium which preceded both President Macron's and President Trump's speeches, that "The way a country takes care of its war dead is a measure of its heart and soul."
He went on to say, "Seventy-five years ago this very morning and yards, simply yards from where you are sitting, a generation of American men (joined by their brothers-in-arms) did the unthinkable."
Then, acknowledging the 160 WWII veterans seated on stage, he added, they "need no reminder of the horrors of war and remember well their comrades who never came home."
In a poignant moment, Matz referenced the poem, "The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak," by Archibald MacLeish:
"They say, Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say: it is you who must say this.
"They say, We leave you our deaths: give them their meaning: give them an end to the war and a true peace: give them a victory that ends the war and a peace afterwards: give them their meaning.
"We were young, they say. We have died. Remember us."
French President Macron picked up the theme when he addressed the assembled crowd of mostly American patriots.
"Young Americans died here," he said. "They died for their country for the freedom of the world. French died on the same beaches for the liberation of their country. They also fell so that their nation, once this task completed, would rediscover its tradition of liberty.
"France wishes to support the promises of Normandy. The lessons of Colleville-sur-Mer are clear: Liberty and democracy are inseparable."
President Macron took this opportunity to award five of the WWII D-Day veterans France's highest order of merit, the Legion d'Honneur.
Following the conclusion of the two presidents' remarks, they spent a fair amount of time on stage warmly shaking the vets' hands and exchanging remarks. Many of them said to Trump: "God bless you." Macron appeared to genuinely enjoy the warmth of the veterans’ heartfelt sentiments.
As a spectacular conclusion, the D-Day festivities were crowned by an airshow. The star of the show: The gleaming Miss Montana, a meticulously restored historic C-47 aircraft based in Missoula. History records that over 50,000 paratroops jumped out of C-47s — a military version of the venerable DC-3 airliner — during the early days of the D-Day campaign.
Other aircraft that wowed the crowd included a flight of F-15s executing the "missing man" formation in dramatic fashion, with one jet shooting into the stratosphere as it left its comrades behind; four French Republic Rafaels, several C-130J military transports, two WWII-vintage P-51 Mustangs, and several French air demonstration teams spewing red, white, and blue smoke.
President Trump made his way to his helicopter to depart. But before he did, he left us with these thoughts about the American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France:
"From across the Earth, Americans are drawn to this place as though it were a part of our very soul.
"We come not only because of what they did here, we come because of who they were.
"They were young men with their entire lives before them. They were husbands who said goodbye to their young brides and took their duty as their fate...
"They came wave after wave without question, without hesitation, and without complaint.
"More powerful than the strength of American arms was the strength of American hearts. These men ran through the fires of hell, moved by a force no weapon could destroy: the fierce patriotism of a free, proud, and sovereign people."
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