Obama hails 'sheer improbability' of D-Day victory

OMAHA BEACH, France – President Obama honored the valiant dead and the “sheer improbability” of their D-Day victory, commemorating Saturday’s 65th anniversary of the decisive invasion even as he remakes two wars and tries to thwart potential nuclear threats in Iran and North Korea.

The young U.S. commander in chief, speaking at the American cemetery after the leaders of France, Canada and Britain, held up the sacrifices of D-Day veterans and their “unimaginable hell” as a lesson for modern times.

“Friends and veterans, what we cannot forget – what we must not forget – is that D-Day was a time and a place where the bravery and selflessness of a few was able to change the course of an entire century,” he said. “At an hour of maximum danger, amid the bleakest of circumstances, men who thought themselves ordinary found it within themselves to do the extraordinary.”

Obama opened the emotional day by meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the nearby picturesque village of Caen. Their wives, dueling style icons in similar attire, met separately at the elegant French Prefecture.

Appearing with Sarkozy before reporters, Obama displayed growing impatience with North Korea and what he called its “extraordinarily provocative” nuclear and ballistic missile tests. He suggested that North Korea is testing international patience as diplomacy has failed to persuade the reclusive communist government to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

“Diplomacy has to involve the other side engaging in a serious way in trying to solve problems,” he said. “We are going to take a very hard look at how we move forward on these issues, and I don’t think that there should be an assumption that we will simply continue down a path in which North Korea is constantly destabilizing the region and we just react in the same ways.”

Obama also took on Iran, suspected by the West of seeking to build its first nuclear bomb, an accusation Tehran denies. The president has said military action remains on the table, but has offered to change U.S. policy and engage in talks with Tehran. He said Saturday, though, it must be “tough diplomacy.”

“We can’t afford a nuclear arms race in the Middle East,” Obama warned. Sarkozy said he worries about “insane statements” by Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

At the same time, Obama is directing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – seeking to end the first and stepping up U.S. engagement in the second. Both have lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in World War II.

This D-Day anniversary assumed special significance because veterans of the battle are reaching their 80s and 90s, and their numbers are dwindling. One American veteran, Jim Norene, who fought with the 101st Airborne Division, came back for Saturday’s ceremony, but died in his sleep Friday night.

“Jim was gravely ill when he left his home, and he knew that he might not return,” Obama said. “But just as he did 65 years ago, he came anyway. May he now rest in peace with the boys he once bled with, and may his family always find solace in the heroism he showed here.”