President Trump’s Inspiring Speech at the 75th D-Day Anniversary in Normandy ~ VIDEO

Normandy, France –  -(AmmoLand.com)- (Note: machine transcript follows) President Macron Mrs. Macron and the people of France to the first lady of the United States and members of the United States Congress two distinguished guests veterans and my fellow Americans we are gathered here on freedom’s altar on these shores on these bluffs on this day.

Seventy five years ago ten thousand men shed their blood and thousands sacrificed their lives for their brothers for their countries and for the survival of liberty. Today we remember those who fell and we honor all who fought right here in Normandy. They won back this ground for civilization to more than one hundred and seventy veterans of the Second World War who join us today you are among the very greatest Americans who will ever live. You are the pride of our nation. You are the glory of our republic.

And we thank you from the bottom of our hearts here with you are over 60 veterans who landed on D-Day.

Our debt to you is everlasting. Today we express our undying gratitude. When you were young these men enlisted their lives in a great crusade. One of the greatest of all times their mission is the story of an epic battle and a ferocious internal struggle between good and evil. On the 6th of June 1944 they joined a liberation force of awesome power and breathtaking scale. After months of planning the Allies had chosen this ancient coastline to mount their campaign to vanquish the wicked tyranny of the Nazi empire from the face of the earth. The battle began in the skies above us. In those first tense midnight hours 1000 aircraft roared overhead with seventeen thousand allied airborne troops preparing to leap into the darkness beyond these trees. Then came Dawn the enemy who had occupied these heights so the largest naval armada in the history of the world. Just a few miles off shore where 7000 vessels bearing one hundred and thirty thousand warriors. They were the citizens of free and independent nations united by their duty to their compatriots and to millions yet unborn. There were the British whose nobility and fortitude saw them through the worst of Dunkirk and the London Blitz the full violence of Nazi fury was no match for the full grandeur of British pride.

Thank you.

There were the Canadians whose robust sense of honor and loyalty compel them to take up arms alongside Britain from the very very beginning. There were the fighting poles the tough Norwegians and the Intrepid Aussies. There were the gallant French commandos soon to be met by thousands of their brave cut who had been ready to write a new chapter in the long history of French valor. And finally there were the Americans. They came from the farms of a vast heartland. The streets of glowing cities in the forges of mighty industrial towns before the war. Many had never ventured beyond their own community. Now they had come to offer their lives half a world from home. This beach codenamed Omaha was defended by the Nazis with monstrous firepower thousands and thousands of mines and spikes driven into the sand so deeply.

It was here that tens of thousands of the Americans came. The guys who boarded the landing craft that morning knew that they carried on their shoulders not just the pack of a soldier.

But the fate of the world.

Colonel George Taylor whose Sixteenth Infantry Regiment would join in the first wave was asked what would happen if the Germans stopped right then and there cold and the beach just stopped them. What would happen. This great American replied Why the 18th Infantry is coming in right behind us

The twenty sixth infantry will come on to. Then there is the second infantry division already afloat and the Ninth Division and the 2nd Armored and the 3rd Armored and all the rest. Maybe the 16th won’t make it but someone will.

One of those men in tailor’s sixteenth regiment was Army medic, Ray Lambert. Ray was only twenty-three but he had already earned three Purple Hearts and two Silver Stars fighting in North Africa and Sicily where he and his brother Bill no longer with us served side by side in the early morning hours. The two brothers stood together on the deck of the USS Henrico before boarding two separate Higgins landing craft. If I don’t make it. Bill said. Please please take care of my family. Ray asked his brother to do the same. Of the 31 men on Ray’s landing craft only Ray and six others made it to the beach.

There were only a few of them left.

Fish came to the sector right here below us. Easy red it was called again and again Ray ran back into the water.

He dragged out one man after another. He was shot. Through the arm. His leg was ripped open. By shrapnel.

His back was broken. He nearly drowned. He had been on the beach for hours bleeding and saving lives. When he finally lost consciousness he woke up the next day on a cot. Beside another badly wounded soldier. He looked over and saw his brother Bill. They made it. They made it. They made it at 98 years old. Ray is here with us today with his fourth Purple Heart and his third Silver Star from Omaha Ray the free world salutes you.

Nearly two hours in unrelenting fire from these bluffs kept the Americans pinned down on the sand. Now read with our heroes blood. Then just a few hundred yards from where I’m standing. A breakthrough came. The battle turned. And with it.

History down on the beach Captain Joe Dawson the son of a Texas preacher led company jeep through a minefield to a natural fold in the hillside still here just beyond this path.

To my right Captain Dustin snuck beneath an enemy machine gun perch and tossed his grenades. Soon American troops were charging up Dawson’s draw. What a job he did. What bravery he showed.

Lieutenant Spalding and the men from company he moved on to crush the enemy strong point on the far side of this cemetery and stop the slaughter on the beach below.

Countless more Americans poured out across this ground all over the countryside.

They join fellow American warriors from Utah Beach and allies from Juneau sword and gold along with the airborne and the French patriots Private 1st Class Russell Pickett of the twenty ninth division’s famed one hundred and 16th infantry regiment had been wounded in the first wave that landed on Omaha Beach at a hospital in England. Private Pickett vowed to return to battle. I’m going to return he said.

I’m going to return six days after D-Day he rejoined his company.

Two thirds had been killed already. Many had been wounded. Within 15 minutes of the invasion they lost 19 just from the small town of Bedford Virginia alone. Before long a grenade left private Pickett and he was gravely wounded so badly wounded again he chose to returned.

He didn’t care. He had to be here. He was then wounded a third time and laid unconscious for 12 days. They thought he was gone. They thought he had no chance. Russell Pickett is the last known survivor of the legendary company A and today believe it or not he has returned once more

To these shores to be with his comrades.

Private Pickett you honor us all with your presence.

Tough guy. By the fourth week of August Paris was liberated.

Someone landed here pushed all the way to the center of Germany. Some threw open the gates of the Nazi concentration camps to liberate Jews who had suffered the bottomless horrors of the Holocaust and some warriors fell on other fields of battle returning to rest on this soil for eternity.

Before this place was consecrated to history the land was owned by a French farmer a member of the French resistance. These were great people. These were strong and tough people.

His terrified wife waited out D-Day in a nearby house holding tight to their little baby girl.

The next day a soldier appeared. I’m an American he said. I’m here to help the French woman was overcome with emotion and cried.

Days later she laid flowers on fresh American graves.

Today her granddaughter Stephanie serves as a guide at this cemetery.

This week Stephanie led 92 year old Marian Winn of California to see the grave of her brother Don for the very first time.

Marian and Stephanie are both with us today and we thank you for keeping alive the memories of our precious heroes.

Thank you nine thousand three hundred and eighty eight young Americans responded.

The white crosses and Stars of David arrayed on these beautiful grounds. Each one has been adopted by a French family that thinks of him as their own.

They come from all over France to look after our boys.

They kneel. They cry they pray.

They place flowers and they never forget. Today America embraces the French people and thanks you for honoring our beloved dad. Thank you to all of our friends and partners our cherished alliance was forged in the heat of battle tested in the trials of war

And prove it and the blessings of peace. Our bond is unbreakable 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 it took their duty as their fate.

They were fathers who would never meet their infant sons and daughters because they had a job to do and with God as their witness they were going to get it done.

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 they battled not for control and domination but for liberty democracy and self-rule.

They pressed on for love and home and country.

The main streets the schoolyards the churches and neighbors the families and communities that gave us men such as these.

They were sustained by the confidence that America can do anything because we are a noble nation with a virtuous people praying to a righteous God the exceptional mighty came from a truly exceptional spirit.

The abundance of courage came from an abundance of faith.

The great deeds of an army came from the great depths of their love as they confronted their faith. The Americans of the Allies placed themselves into the palm of God’s hand.

The men behind me will tell you that they are just the lucky ones. As one of them recently put it all the heroes are buried here but we know what these men did.

We knew how brave they were. They came here and saved freedom.

And then they went home and showed us all what freedom is all about.

The American sons and daughters who saw us to victory were no less extraordinary in peace. They build families. They built industries.

They built a national culture that inspired the entire world. In the decades that followed America defeated communism here its civil rights revolutionized science launched a man to the moon and then kept on pushing two new frontiers.

And today America is stronger than ever before seven decades ago.

The Warriors of D-Day fought a sinister enemy who spoke of a Thousand Year Empire in defeating that evil.

They left a legacy that will last not only for a thousand years but for all time. For as long as the soul knows of duty and honor for as long as freedom keeps its hold on the human heart to the men who sit behind me and to the boys who rest in the field before me your example will never ever grow old your legend will never die.

Your spirit brave unyielding and true will never die.

The blood that they spilled the tears that they shed the lives that they gave the sacrifice that they made did not just win a battles.

It did not just win a war. Those who fought here won a future for our nation. They won the survival of our civilization.

And they showed us the way to love cherish and defend our way of life. For many centuries to come.

Today as we stand together upon this sacred we pledge that our nations will forever be strong and united.

We will forever be together.

Our people will forever be bold our hearts will forever be loyal and our children and their children will forever and always be free.

May God bless our great veterans. May God bless our allies. May God bless the heroes of D-Day and may God bless America. Thank you. Thank you very much.