forget, to never surrender, and to never waver in our determination to defend freedom, to advance democracy, and to seek justice for all people. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, the prime minister of great britain, gordon brown. >> 65 years ago, and that in light of a gray dawn, more than 1000 small craft took to erupt seat on a day that will be forever a day of bravery. on that june morning, the young of our nations stepped out onto

these beaches below and into history. as long as freedom lives, their deeds will never die. now, more than half a century on, it is an honor for me to speak for the british people, alongside friends, and with his royal highness, the prince of wales, each of us represent the peoples of our nations, as together we salute the brave fighting men of the largest amphibious operation in the annals of warfare. we remember those who advanced grain of sand by grain of sand, utterly determined amid the bullets and the bloodshed that freedom would not be pushed back into the sea, but would rise from these beaches below to liberate a continent and to save a generation.

so this is sacred ground. this day marks the triumph of right over wrong, of truth over lies, the victory of human decency over hatred and the holocaust. it is the only place from which after five years of total war and 40 million deaths, liver -- europe could be liberated. this is a place where the break through to victory occurred, the place from where you could chart the war's end and the start of a new world. this is the place where britain, america, canada, and france came together as one. people talk of europe and that are an ocean apart, separated by thousands of miles of water and hundreds of years of different traditions. but on june 1944, in this place and at that moment, europe and

america came closer together than at any time in any century, and we are eternal allies now because of this. allies not free season, but for centuries evermore. immemorial by a shared endeavor and an unshakable faith. those men who risked everything 65 years ago demonstrated that although tyranny may suppress, it cannot endure for ever. they proved that dictatorship make for a time have the power to dictate, but that it will not, in the end, decide the course of the human journey. they enacted the belief that as long as one of us is not free, no one of us is free. they made real the timeless bonds enshrined in the bill of rights, the declaration of independence, the charter of

liberty, and the call of liberty, equality, and fraternity. just the hopes of one age, but the dreams of all ages. so intense was the cooperation between our nations that when winston churchill regularly asked strategists who were planning the day, he never knew until they arrive at 10 downing street with the officer would be british, canadian, or american. next to, hall beach, we join president obama in paying tribute to the bravery of american soldiers who gave their lives for names of they never knew, and faces than ever saw, for people who have lived in freedom thanks to their sacrifice and valor. i know that all of britain will be proud today that jack would will be decorated by president sarkozy.

jack wood's landed on juneau beach on that day, and with his comrades went on to capture five bridges. the hand that will today received the legion of honor from the president of france is the hand which liberated one of the first french villages to be freed. there is an unbroken line from what happened here through to the battle of the bulge and the crossing of the thine. on d-day, the suns of liberation were heard right across europe. resistance fighters began to blow up bridges and railway lines. millions have read that in amsterdam, a young girl, and frank, was inspired to write of the news of the day as too wonderful, almost too like a fairy tale. even at the age of 14, it was a net affirmation that truck --

manteca triumph in the midst of carnage. she wrote, i still believe that people are good at heart. these words, written before her short life ended in a diary she thought nobody would ever read, of those courageous young men and women of 1944, the moral truth that people are good at heart is now an inspiration for another generation of courageous men and women in our armed forces whose goodness today is to work for peace in every corner of the world. we salute the devotion of our armed forces. our gratitude to them and their families must always be equal to what they give. above all else, for you, the remaining few, the veterans who have outlived that battle and that war, who gathered here today with your families and

your children, so our children and our children's children will gather here year after year to honor you long after you are gone. far beyond these moments of reflection and remembrance, the threads of your lives and your woven into the fabric of our world. if anybody had set on june 6, 1944, that we would create a new age of peace and unity in a europe that had been torn by sentries of conflict, if anyone would have said we would witness a wall raised up by the hands of totalitarian power and then torn down brick by brick by the hands of people yearning to be free, if anybody had said such things in june 1944, who would have dared to believe that all this was possible? but the impossible has happened, and europe is united. now we must complete our great

covenant with the dead of d-day. our promise that we would build a world worthy of their sacrifice and their heroism. how can we say we have achieved all that we set out to do? the promise of peace and justice, when the shadow of nuclear proliferation and more still spreads around the earth. when drfur is in that group of genocide, when the enemy is not just violence, but a mortal threat of poverty, hunger, illiteracy, disease, and war. so there are dreams of liberation still to be realized. commitments still to be redeemed, bows to the dead still to be kept, and so we must be as if liberators for our day and our generation, too. today we are only halfway to honoring the pledges we may for a new world. we are only halfway from these

beaches to the shining future, the truly global society to which they opened the way. the beacon of hope that was lit with the liberation of europe must now lead us on to a world free of the danger of nuclear weapons, with all assuring the mutual security of each against terror and war. lead us on tour world finally delivered from the evil of poverty and the send of prejudice, where intolerance is never tolerated, where no one suffers persecution or discrimination on grounds of race, faith, or differences of identity and nationality. the new world we reach for is not preordained predetermined. just as victory at normandy could not be predicted or presumed, so, too, the success of our cause is today is not inevitable. but neither is it impossible. if our beliefs are god-given, our path to achieve them is man- made. in this place of all places, it

affirms that free people can bend history in the direction of our best hopes. so it was on the day, so it is today. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states, barack obama. [applause] >> midafternoon. -- good afternoon. thank you. sarkozy, prime minister brown, prime minister arbor, prince charles, for being here today.

thank you to our secretary of veterans affairs for making the trip out here to join us. banks also look to susan eisenhower, whose grandfather began this mission 65 years ago with a simple charge, okay, let's go. and to a world war two veteran who returned home to serve a proud and distinguished career as a united states senator and a national leader, bob dole. [applause] i am not the first american president to come up and mark this anniversary, and i likely will not be the last. this is an event that has long brought to this coast both heads of state and grateful citizens, veterans and their

loved ones, the liberated and their liberators. spoken of, and depicted in countless books and films and speeches. long after our time on this earth has passed, one word will still bring forth the pride and awe of men and women who will never meet the heroes who said before us -- the day. why is this? of all the battles and all the wars across the span of human history, why does this day hold such a revered place in our memory? what is it about the struggle that took place on the sands a few short steps from here that brings us back to remember a year after year after year?

part of it, i think, is the size of the odds that weighed against success. for three centuries, no invader had ever been able to cross the english channel into normandy. it had never been more difficult than in 1944. that was the year that hitler ordered his top field marshal to fortify the atlantic wall against a seaborne invasion. and the tip of norway to southern france, nazis lined the steep cliffs with machine guns and artillery. low-lying areas were flooded to block passage. tarpon polls awaited paratroopers. if you sharpened poles awaited paratroopers. by the time of the invasion, half a million germans waited for the allies along the coast between holland and northern france. at dawn on june 6, the allies

came. the best chance for victory had been for the british royal air corps to take out the guns on the cliffs all airborne divisions parachuted behind enemy lines. but all the not go according to plan. paratroopers landed miles from their mark. the fog and clouds prevented allied planes from destroying the guns on the cliffs. when the ships landed here at omaha, and unimaginable help rained down on the men. many never made it out of the votes. and yet -- many never made it out of the boats. one by one, the allied forces made their way to shore. they were american, british, and canadian. soon the paratroopers found each other and fought their way back.

the rangers scaled the cliffs. by the end of the day, against all odds, the ground on which we stand was free once more. the sheer in probability of this victory is part of what makes d-day so memorable. it arises from the clarity of purpose from which this war was waged. we live in a world of competing beliefs and claims about what is true. it is a world of buried religions and cultures and forms of government being buried in religions. it is all too rare for a struggle to reverse that speaks to something universal about humanity. the second world war did that. no man who shed blood or lost a brother would say that war is good, but all know that this war was essential. what we faced in nazi

totalitarianism was not just a battle of competing interests. it was a competing vision of humanity. that is the ideology that sought to subjugate, humiliating, and exterminate. perpetrated murder on a massive scale, filled by hatred for those who were deemed a different and therefore inferior. it was evil. the nations that joined together to defeat hitler's reich were not perfect. they made their share of mistakes. they did not always agree with each other on every issue. but whatever got a parade to, whatever our differences, we knew that the -- whatever god we prayed to, we knew that the evil had to be stopped. citizens of all faith and of no faith came to believe that we could not remain as bystanders

to the savage perpetration of death and destruction. and so we joined and sent our sons to fight and often die for the men and women than ever met, so they might know what it is to be free. a president who asked his country to break also asked his citizens to serve and sacrifice to make the invasion possible. on farms and factories, millions of men and women work three shifts a day, month after month, year after year. trucks and tanks came from plants in michigan and indiana, new york and illinois. bombers and fighter planes rolled off assembly lines in ohio and kansas, where my grandmother did her part as an inspector. shipyards on both coasts produced the largest in history, including the landing

craft from new orleans that eventually made it here to omaha. despite all the years of planning and preparation, despite the inspiration of our leaders, the skill of our generals, the strength of art out -- firepower and unyielding support from our home front, the outcome of the entire struggle will ultimately blessed -- rest on the success of one day in germany. lyndon johnson once said there are certain moments when history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. the date was such a moment -- d-day was such a moment. the allies predict had the allies failed year, hitler's occupation of this continent might have continued

indefinitely. instead, victory here secured a foothold in france. open a path to berlin. it made possible the achievements that followed the liberation of europe, the marshall plan, the nato alliance, the shared prosperity and security that flowed from each. so much of the progress that would define the 20 sentry on both sides of the atlantic came down to a battle for a slice of beach only 6 miles long and 2 miles wide. more particularly, it came down to the men who landed here, those who now rest in this place for eternity, and those who were with us here today. perhaps more than any other reason, you, the veterans of that landing, or why we still remember what happened on d-day. you are what we keep coming back.

you remind us that in the end, human destiny is not determined by forces beyond our control. you remind us that our future is not shaped by mere chance or circumstance. our history has always been the sum total of the choices made and the actions taken by each individual man and woman. it has always been up to us. you could have done what hitler believed he would do when you arrived here. in the face of a merciless assault from these cliffs, you could have idled the boats offshore, met a garage of tracer bullets that split the night sky -- and mirage of bullets. you could have hidden in the hedgerows or waited behind the sea wall. you could have done only what was necessary to ensure your own survival. but that is not what you did.

that is not the story you told on d-day. your story was written by men who parachuted into dark marshes. lost and alone, he fought his way through the gunfire and helped liberate the town. it is a story written by an army ranger who saw half the man on his landing craft drown when it was hit by shell fire just a thousand yards of the speech. he spent three hours in freezing water and was one of only 90 rangers to survive out of the 225 who were sent to scale the cliffs. it is a story written by so many who are no longer with us. private barrett was only

supposed to serve as a guide for the first infantry division. heroes. after wading ashore, he returned to the water again and again and again to save his wounded and drowning comrades. under the heaviest possible enemy fire, he carried them to safety. he carried them in his own arms this is the story of allied victory. it is the legend of humans like easy company and the all- american 82nd. it is the tale of the british people whose courage during the blitz forced hitler to call off the invasion of england. the canadians who came, even though they were never attacked. the russians, who sustained the some of the war's heaviest casualties on the eastern front. all those rich men and women who would rather have died resisting tierney and live

within its grasp -- resisting tyranny. for me, it is my grandfather who arrived on this beach six weeks after d-day and marched across europe. it is my great uncle who was part of the first american division to reach an elaborate a nazi concentration camp. i am so proud that he is with us here today. i know this trip does not get any easier as the years pass. for those of you who make it, there is nothing they could keep your weight. -- they could keep you away. 1 such veteran was a member of the hundred first airborne.

last night, after visiting the cemetery for one last time, he passed away in his sleep. he was gravely ill when he left his home and knew that he might not return. just as he did 65 years ago, he came anyway. maybe now rest in peace. with the boys he wants blood with. the his family always find solace in the heroism he showed. in the end, jim came back to normandy for the same reason we all come back. he came for the reason articulated by our -- another former paratrooper that is with us today. when asked why he made the trip, howard said, it is important that we tell our stories. it does not have to be something big. just a little something about what happened so people don't forget. so people don't forget. friends and veterans, we cannot

forget. what we must not forget is that the day -- d-day was able to change the course of an entire century. an hour of maximum danger amid the weakest of circumstances, men who thought themselves ordinary found within themselves the ability to do something extraordinary. they fought for their moms and sweethearts back home. for the fellow warriors who came to know his brothers. they fought out of a simple sense of duty. 80 sustained by the same ideals for which their countrymen had once fought and bled for over two centuries. that is the story of normandy. but also the story of america. of the minutemen who gathered on a green, of the union boys to

repel the charges gettysburg, of the men who gave the last full measure of devotion. of all the young men and women whose valor and witness still carry forward this legacy of service and sacrifice. it is a story that has never come easy, and one that always gives us hope. we face the hardships and struggles of our time, and arrive at that hour for which we were born. we cannot help but draw strength from those moments in history when the best among us were somehow able to swallow their fears and secure a beachhead on an unforgiving shore. to those men who achieve that victory 65 years ago, we thank you for your service. may god bless you and god bless the memory of all those to rest here. [applause]

>> ladies and gentlemen, for the normandy veterans that are with us here today will be awarded the legion of honor in recognition of their efforts in bravery. the legion of honor is france's highest declaration. it was greeted by napoleon bonaparte in 18 02. today's recipients will be awarded its. -- awarded it. [speaking french]

♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the presentation of the legion of honor to zane schlemmer, jack woods, joseph donroach, and military personnel, gather to orders. [speaking french] [applause]

[speaking french] [applause] [speaking french] [applause] [speaking french] [applause]