Obama honors D-Day sacrifices at Omaha Beach ceremony --- COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France — President Obama on Friday honored a disappearing generation of American servicemen who rushed the shores of Normandy 70 years ago on D-Day in a daring and courageous act to liberate Europe, while promising a new generation of veterans that their sacrifices will never be forgotten. -- Obama gathered with world leaders and dignitaries, including Queen Elizabeth II, Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in northern France to commemorate the world’s largest amphibious invasion, a turning point in World War II. More than 150,000 American, British, Canadian and other Allied D-Day troops risked — or lost — their lives to begin reclaiming Nazi-occupied Western Europe that day. -- The leaders came together as the crisis in Ukraine, the worst conflict between Russia and the West since the Cold War, cast a long shadow over the D-Day commemorations — offering a stark reminder that the long battle for democracy in Europe is not over. --- “But America’s claim — our commitment — to liberty, our claim to equality, our claim to freedom and to the inherent dignity of every human being, that claim is written in the blood on these beaches, and it will endure for eternity,” Obama said on a stage at the cemetery and memorial here, on the bluffs overlooking Omaha Beach. -- And while the Ukrainian crisis was not the focus of attention, the D-Day ceremonies served as platform for small steps toward resolving it. -- At a luncheon hosted by French President François Hollande, Putin met briefly with Ukrainian President-elect Petro Poroshenko, a late invitee, and subsequently spoke privately for 10 to 15 minutes with Obama. The White House confirmed that the discussion between Obama and Putin took place but did not immediately provide details. --- At the commemoration earlier in the day, with the English Channel rocking softly under clear, sunny skies, Obama left geopolitics out of his address to dozens of D-Day veterans and more than 14,000 other attendees. -- His tribute to the veterans — men who fudged their ages so they could go to war earlier, men who were told they were too uneducated to pilot a plane and so became paratroopers instead — was rich in history. Yet it was also striking because so few of the men who fought on D-Day — now all in their late 80s and early 90s — will be alive at the 75th celebration of the assault. -- “Here, we don’t just commemorate victory, as proud of that victory as we are; we don’t just honor sacrifice, as grateful as the world is; we come to remember why America and our allies gave so much for the survival of liberty at its moment of maximum peril,” Obama said at the Normandy American Cemetery, where so many are buried. “And we come to tell the story of the men and women who did it, so that it remains seared into the memory of the future world.” -- The D-Day invasion changed the course of history. It cracked Nazi dictator Adolph Hitler’s western front as Soviet troops made advances on the ground in the east. The amphibious invasion launched the weeks-long Battle of Normandy, which brought the Allies to Paris and liberated France from Nazi occupation. -- Recalling the stories of 90-year-old veterans who made it here to commemorate the day, Obama connected their sacrifices to those of another generation — “this 9/11 Generation of service members” — who also “chose to serve a cause that’s greater than self.” -- And in telling the stories of the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, he pledged that “future generations, whether 70 or 700 years hence, will gather at places like this to honor them — and to say that these were generations of men and women who proved once again that the United States of America is and will remain the greatest force for freedom the world has ever known.” -- Obama declared June 6 a national remembrance day. - More, Zachary A. Goldfarb, Washingtonpost