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Well, the weather's deteriorated from those ceremonies earlier today when we had plenty of sunshine. Now, this is a pretty good imitation of what the soldiers, sailors and airmen must have faced 65 years ago on D-Day morning, of course it’s evening in Normandy now, but in fact you can see the surf kicking up out there quite a bit. It’s raining and back then on D-Day morning they had fog, and I want to just point out the sort of difficulty that some of the servicemen had coming ashore here. This is Omaha Beach, part of Omaha Beach, and coming off the beach, they had to go up these cliffs, like you see on my left, and in fact quite steep perhaps several hundred feet tall. And at the top were German gun emplacements and trenches, and the Germans were able to fire down directly onto the oncoming allied soldiers. It was the kind of thing that was relived over and over again today in various parts of the beaches along here, the difficulty of coming ashore, establishing an beachhead and the amazing accomplishment of those people who did it. President Barack Obama talked about that in his speech today, directly speaking to the very veterans who're here .
"You, the veterans of that landing are why we still remember what happened on D-Day. You’re why we keep coming back, for 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."
All in all, a very moving occasion with all four leaders, the two presidents and two prime ministers, directly addressing the men who fought their way ashore here 65 years ago today.
Jim Bittermann cnn on Omaha beach.