Good morning, American, it's Friday. Paul Harvey's voice just made me feel good, just made me feel good. Very historic voice, just broadcast excellence, just absolute broadcast excellence, which brings me to what happened yesterday. And when I say yesterday, I mean today because I'm recording this on June 6.
So this morning I get up early. I had totally forgotten what day it was. It's been a, you know, an interesting week. I get up and I turn on the television and they are broadcasting live from Normandy, France.
And the president of the United States was giving a talk about what happened there 80 years ago today on June 6, 1944, 156,000 allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy. Now I don't think you have any idea what it took for this to happen. The weather had to be right. They had to coordinate 156,000 people in where they were going.
And they were told when they started, most of you are going to die. Most of you are going to die, but they went anyway. And it was the end of Nazi Germany in World War II. It was the end of those Nazis.
The D-Day invasion. It was, oh, God, five beaches were targeted on D-Day, Omaha, Utah, gold, Juneau and sword, 4,414 allied soldiers were confirmed dead by the end of the day, paratroopers from the US 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions, some of the still best divisions in our military, along with British and Canadian paratroopers were dropped behind enemy lines before the dawn of D-Day. The invasion fleet consisted of nearly 7,000 ships. Think about this.
Huh. Now to kind of go off script here, let me just tell you that I am a boomer. My dad and two of my uncles fought in World War II, bravely. All of their friends that I literally grew up with were World War II veterans.
My uncle's good friend, Joe, was one of the people who was there on D-Day at Normandy. And I remember when they had the 50th anniversary, they just had the 80th. So 30 years ago, they had the 50th anniversary of that. And Joe, an old man at the time, okay?
Not a young man, made his way back to Normandy to visit the cemetery, to visit the graves of all of the brave men that he lost during that invasion. He said it was the most important thing he'd ever done in his life. Going back there, 50 years later, he said that the invasion was the most important thing that he'd ever done in his life. And coming back 50 years later was the most rewarding thing that he had ever done in his life.
And you should have seen him talking about it. It was just incredible. I am so grateful that I have the memories of these heroes that I have known when I was watching the observance on television this morning, and I saw the surviving soldiers that were all there with their hats on, their World War II hats, and they had the ceremony. And a young officer stood up and did an end of watch thing.
I'm not sure if it was called the end of watch, but it was, we've got you type thing now, holy cow, these veterans were just, you just should have seen the look on their faces. If you didn't watch this, you should have seen the look on their faces. And when it came time for the taps, they all were saluting. Every, every day I want them, some of them could barely hold up their hands, but they were saluting, still heroes, still absolute heroes.
I, again, I am so grateful for what they did for us. I am so grateful to know that this country, even with all the divided crap we're into right now, back then, when it was important, we all got together and the war effort was everything. I heard stories of my mom and all of her friends doing everything they could to support the troops back here in the United States. I don't get political on this, but I am so thankful that our president was there today talking about the heroes.
So thankful that he was there honoring the heroes. We'll see you next week.