It’s the 75th Anniversary of D-Day

COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France—The first thing you notice, at the end of the narrow roads that lead to this precipice, is how peaceful this place is. The cliffs are thick with rough green vegetation and drop down—sharply, then more gradually—to a Prussian-blue sea and a windswept beach. Omaha Beach.

The morning I went, the sun was bright, and a few people were walking on the sand with a dog. I could see them from a lookout on the pathway to the Normandy American Cemetery here, where more than 9,300 servicemen and a few servicewomen are buried—neat rows of milk-white marble crosses, 150 Stars of David, and 307 graves of unknown dead that read, simply, “Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms, known but to God.”

I had been told nothing quite prepares you for this place, and it was true.

June 6 is the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. In the past, American presidents have used D-Day to mark a moment—from Ronald Reagan, who gave his “Boys of Pointe du Hoc” speech at the 40th anniversary in 1984, at the peak of the Cold War, to Barack Obama, who addressed the 9/11 generation of veterans at the 70th in 2014.

This year’s commemoration, though, will likely have a different tone. Donald Trump, who will attend a ceremony here with French President Emmanuel Macron, has been threatening—in words as powerful as actions—the solidarity and mutual understandings of NATO. He’s been lashing out at Europe, accusing it of trying to rip off the United States, which has provided for the Continent’s defense since the Second World War.