Emotional Obama leads D-Day tribute to WWII veterans

VIERVILLE-SUR-MER, France: A “humbled” US President Barack Obama led an emotional tribute on Friday to the thousands of troops who gave their lives to liberate Europe from Nazism, on the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings that “shaped the security and well-being of all posterity.”
This time, the sun shone and no blood spilled. As veterans from the 29th Infantry Division gathered at dawn on Omaha Beach, it was to remember their fallen comrades.
The seven returning vets and their family members raised a toast to those who died where more than 150,000 other US, British, Canadian and other Allied forces came ashore on June 6, 1944. Speaking at Omaha Beach in front of veterans resplendent in military uniforms complete with medals glittering in the sun, Obama said that their sacrifice and bravery had breached “Hitler’s Wall” and secured today’s era of democracy and freedom.
“By the end of that longest day, this beach had been fought, lost, refought and won, a piece of Europe once again liberated and free. Hitler’s Wall was breached, letting loose Patton’s Army to pour into France,” said a visibly moved Obama in a speech interrupted by a lengthy standing ovation.
Hundreds of onlookers crowded the beach, including many re-enactors in period army uniforms. Some drove vintage jeeps and armored vehicles like those that would have been seen here 70 years ago.
A military band of serving 29th division members played taps and “Amazing Grace,” before the seven vets walked off the beach to the applause of hundreds of onlookers.
The 29th, a National Guard formation nicknamed the Blue and Gray, was one of six Allied infantry and three airborne divisions that assaulted a 80-km stretch of heavily defended coastline. Nearly 1,000 members of the division were killed, wounded or went missing on the invasion’s first day.