but trelegy has shown me that there's still beauty and breath to be had. because with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy keeps my airways open and prevents future flare-ups. and with one dose a day, trelegy improves lung function so i can breathe more freely all day and night. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. ♪ what a wonderful world ♪ ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy for copd because breathing should be beautiful. ♪ >> steve: the 80th anniversary of d-day. 1:00 in the afternoon in france. we are awaiting remarks from president biden who is in normandy along with world war ii veterans and other world leaders as well. >> lawrence: so they are gathering to commemorate the historic invasion that led to the defeat of the nazis in europe. >> brian: all right. today the world will pause. will pause to honor the u.s. and allied forces. look at this video. who stormed the beaches of normandy in this day in 1944 and to remember the 73,000 allied members who lost their lives fighting for freedom. >> ainsley: gosh. peter doocy joins us now from the beaches of normandy. peter? >> peter: and president biden said to one of the d-day veterans here today "you saved the world." and another one of the veterans joked to president biden "don't get old." so, even though this is a very solemn occasion on hallowed ground, it has been a series of very jovial conversations with these d-day veterans and survivors and president biden who is running a few minutes behind schedule right now. we know that the veterans and the president were meeting inside of a glass gazebo right on the cliffs above omaha beach that americans very bravely scaled 80 years ago right this minute under steady bombardment from heavily fortified german positions as part of what is still the largest amphibious assault ever. we know that at some point on this trip to france, president biden does plan to draw parallels to the dictator moving through europe in the 40s and the dictator trying to move through europe in the 2020s, vladimir putin and, you get a sense of that in his new d-day proclamation that says in part today we remember all the americans who laid down their lives on d-day to help end the tyranny of fascism across europe, liberate oppressed peoples, and ensure the flame of liberty would burn bright around the world. 80 years ago, d-day feels like a long time ago except to the american heroes who survived and are here today. >> you can never repeat those kids who lost their lives here. >> for a 19-year-old, which i was then, was extremely important. i wasn't afraid. i was brought up by the events happening. >> peter: the world war ii veterans who are here today all fought on d-day in their late teens or early 20's. but they are all about 100 years old now. so this is likely the last trip for a milestone anniversary to normandy for many of them. in fact, one of these veterans of world war ii, a 102-year-old man from rochester, new york named bob prix shetty fell ill and died in germany on his way to this event. >> steve: going to talk a little bit about what they face 80 years ago today that dictator adolf hitler and naziism and fast-forward to today and talk about another dictator, certainly, vladimir putin, and we can't let that happen again, right? >> peter: it is going to be between today's remarks and tomorrow when he goes to pointe du hoc that the americans had to scale part of the early days of d-day and d-day plus 1 and plus 2 to try to liberate france. tomorrow when he goes pointe du hoc, according to a lot of the aides that are starting to preview the speech in the press, they want him to echo ronald reagan who spoke in that same spot about the cold war that's going to be a challenge for president biden. there are a lot of people here from the united states president's remarks today and tomorrow. >> ainsley: all the allied troops buried there, 73,000. i know there were 73,000 that died. some of them i assume were buried back here in america. tell us where you are. >> peter: we are standing just on the sidelines of the american cemetery. it's extraordinary. this is my first time here the cemetery is between us and the cliff and so when you read about d-day and you see the old news reels, basically that these armed forces fighting all day to take 300 yards of beach and climb up a very, very steep cliff and i was standing germans here in fortified positions had a very, very big advantage that first day that is why it was such a sacrifice for americans even when their plans completely fell apart to keep going something fight on display when you look at the names and read people are buried. 45 sets of brothers here. 33 of them are next to each other. there is a father and son buried here in this cemetery next to each other. 80 years later, it is extraordinary to think about something like that. especially because we are at a time in our history where the american military is trying to figure out ways to do things remotely, to do things over the horizon. 80 years ago today, they sent waves and waves of young americans with rifles to cross a beach and climb a cliff and the sacrifice is breathtaking when you stand here and reimagine it happening right where we are standing. >> brian: bring in another peter, pete hegseth. a veteran. you wrote your book about this. but you talk about courage. the war starts today -- the invasion starts today by augers 25th, 2024 same year, couple months later paris is liberated. how many people had to sacrifice just to go into the line of fire to push the germans out? >> pete: it's staggering. as peter was talking about and i was looking at those crosses it got me thinking of when we would get intention in iraq about a neighborhood, area we were going to where they would say, you know, here is the ied attacks. here's the sophisticated attacks that have happened. here is the network of insurgents that control that area. i don't care who you are, get spidey sense what are we going into here? what is tomorrow going to look like. i don't care how are. when you get a sense that the enemy is primed, there could be an attack. there could be an ambush where you are going, you are next level. imagine what the boys of june 6th thought. you're about to open a second front against the best war machine the world has ever seen in nazi germany. impossible odds. >> brian: they are waiting. >> peter: place you have never been to. >> brian: and they are waiting. >> pete: and they are waiting. fortified. boys nowhere near as trained as our modern military is. >> lawrence: they are kids. >> pete: they are kids. good luck. >> steve: with a rifle. >> pete: with a rifle. they had they believed in their nation. they loved their country. they loved what was behind them and they were willing to defend it. and they were ordinary men who did extraordinary things and that's why -- they deserve everything we are doing this 80 years later. and may we do it 80 years from now. because our boys better understand what they did because what they did is why we sit here right now on "fox & friends" at the 7:00 a.m. hour in new york city because if we hadn't, the world would look very different. >> steve: that is why, pete, there are so many people at the very end of their lives. over 100 years old. i see some reporting this morning that there are apparently 150 of the survivors who were there from america on that day 80 years ago. but they would do anything they could to relive how they saved the world that started 80 years ago today. >> lawrence: so, pete, what does the president need to say today? put yourself as a young boy that is joining the military we know recruitment is down: we are highlighting history here. there is a moment here. what does he need to say? >> pete: he needs to please not get political at all. you know, he wants to model himself after the boys of pointe du hoc, ronald reagan, on the courage of what was done there the spirit of what was done there. >> brian: looks like they are standing up. i imagine the president is going to be coming out. >> ainsley: or the national anthem, maybe? >> pete: he hasn't been able to avoid that in other settings. hopefully he has advisers and speech writers hey, in this moment at this time, with these boys with these men behind me, who have done so much, keep it focused. >> ainsley: i know you have interviewed some different veterans. i'm sure you sat down with many world war ii veterans. what did they tell you? what sticks out in your mind? >> pete: it's amazing how at peace they are with what the undertaking they had to undertake, which had to have seen impossible at the beginning. >> pete: must have seemed like a suicide mission. >> brian: look at this. >> pete: fight until you win back ramp dropping on that? you will fight until the war is over. that's what is very different world war ii. i was in iraq for a year. afghanistan for a year. new rotation, new troops. in this case, the war is over when you either win or you die. >> brian: yeah. >> pete: as a result, i mean, you had guys that did three years, two and a half years, four years, on the fronts lines pushing forward. it is a remark -- and then they came back and rebuilt our nation. >> brian: some of the stories are when they get up, they try to get as close as possible. i think like these duck boats, they would open up the back and some of them died right away because their packs, they went backwards. they were drowned because their packs were so tight. this is all they had was on their backpack. >> ainsley: apparently it presented unexpected dense hedros. the german forces were using those tactics and overcome obstacles in advance. >> brian: i understand there is going to be a flyover and french national anthem, u.s. national anthem, the invocation and then the secretary charles k. da joy and then emmanuel macron and then lloyd austin. >> lawrence: just looking at the honor guard putting the flags as they prepare to say all of those anthems. >> normandy is an area. it wasn't just omaha beach. five beaches. >> normandy i did. there were 11,000 allied aircraft there were 7,000 ships and boats and thousands of other vehicles it was a logistical miracle that it happened. >> air, land and see waited to see whether it was possible. a giant faint, meaning a fake of inflatable army that created to make the germans think we were going in one direction and not another. then, dwight eisenhower wrote two letters that morning. i love that about the legacy of american generals. one if it was successful and one if it had failed bee modern standards we lost incredible you probably have the numbers in front of you 73,000 allied taking a foot hold. some might say in modern terms, that was a failure. of course we look back now and realize it was miraculous success that saved the world and all of those crosses there for a reason. without that wave of american boys in an opportunity preponderance up. i would love to hear it. he talked about what this operation would mean to the world at the time before it happens. happened. >> steve: interesting thing as you look live at normandy france today where it's a little after 1:00 in the afternoon, the weather is beautiful. and operation overlord, ainsley pointed this out a little while ago was not supposed to happen on this day originally. but they had a different day but it was bad weather. and eisenhower and everybody else were relying on forecasters who were not particularly accurate back then. >> pete: no fox weather back then. >> steve: no fox weather they staked, essentially the survival of civilization on that weather forecast. >> ainsley: pete, it was supposed to be on june 5th and eisenhower decided june 6th, which happens to be your birthday. you wouldn't possibly be born if it weren't for our soldiers. >> pete: exactly a free country like we are today. if you have ever heard live machine gunfire just one machine gun. >> steve: not aiming at me. >> pete: aiming at anybody. can you imagine the echoing of multiple in pillbox and grenades and artillery and to have the fortitude and courage of that generation to charge -- to charge an open beach, which is fully covered? and then a cliff. it's unbelievable. >> lawrence: looks like the president of the united states is making his way to the stage. president macron is also there. pete, real quickly as we prepare for the president to make his speech here, these veterans -- some of them over 100 years old. some in wheelchairs, but i'm looking at some of them standing. and they had their hands saluting to the flag, what does that mean to you right now as we witness this as the president and french president make their way to the stage. >> pete: ask yourself do we deserve these men? are we living worthy of what they did? it's unclear right now. but they remind us of the best of us. and we salute them today. god bless them. we are not here without them. [bell tolls] >> brian: emmanuel macron speaking first. followed by the president. video presentation and then our president will speak. and then we are going to hear taps. 21-gun salute and flyover. >> steve: meantime because this is such a solemn affair. let's just listen. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> distinguished guests, the president of the united states of america and dr. biden, accompanied by the president of the french republic and mrs. macron. [speaking french] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> distinguished guests, please remain standing for the national anthem of the french republic followed by the national anthem of the united states of america. [speaking french] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [national anthem] ♪ [national anthem] [national anthem] ♪ [national anthem] ♪ [national anthem] ♪ [applause] >> distinguished guests, please remain standing for the invocation delivered by chaplain karen meeker. [speaking french] >> let us bow our heads in humble refe reverence and solemn remembrance let us pray. god, when you needed someone to defend freedom, you made a soldier. when you needed someone to fight tyranny, you created a marine. when you needed someone to protect the skies, you made an airman. when you needed someone to guard the seas, you made the sailor'. and to patrol the shores, the coast guard. when you needed to send someone brave and true, it has always been and always will be the men and women of the armed forces. when the world needed heroes, you called the greatest generation to courage and their answer still oak co-s in the soul of the nation. shine your eternal light upon those whose grave stones encircle us as silent sentinels reminding us of the price of liberty. comfort with your abiding presence those who mourn empty tables and empty chairs of those who gave their best hopes for our brighter tomorrows. be our witness, o god, as we stand on this hallowed ground, consecrated in blood that we will be devoted to the preservation of peace with the same determination as these here who fought four score years ago. as storm clouds gather on the horizon once again, rise up, o god, the next greatest generation to meet every challenge with an unbreakable resolve to do what is right and good in your sight. not counting the cost but weighing the unfinished work of freedom, a vision where all people can pursue the life to which you have created them, may it be so, i pray in your holy name, amen and amen. >> distinguished guests, please take your seats. [speaking french] >> please welcome the secretary of the american battle monument commissions charles kay dejoy. [speaking french] [applause] >> thank you. presidents and first lady biden president and madam macron, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the american battle monuments commission normandy american cemetery. [speaking french] d-day is the hinge of history. it is here we reflect the very best of america's values. when america sends its young, its brave, its finest. we do not send them to fight for a king or a crown. we do not fight for a sect or denomination. we do not fight for a mother land or a father land. no. and we never ever fight for conquest or plunder or enslavement of another people. when america is at its best, america sends its young, its brave, its finest to fight for simple, humble values. the values of freedom, liberty, and democracy. and when the job is done, when the mission is accomplished, when the tyrant is taken down and democracy is stood up, america does something unique in the history of mankind. we go home. all that america asks for in return for the sacrifice of our young, our brave, and our finest are a few small plots of land to bury our dead. all of you are seated here in one of those small plots of land. that is why this date, june 6th, this place, normandy, and this ceremony here is so important. it is a reminder to all of us of the true cost of war and the real price of freedom. it is a price that we paid on d-day 80 years ago. it is a price that we remind all authoritarian dictators today that if necessary we will pay that price again to ensure the success of freedom. and that is ultimately why france knows the united states knows. and we know. [speaking french] that the world's most powerful weapons system is not a t-72 manned by mercenaries. it's the not the few january aircraft carrier patrolling artificial island, it's not a suicide terrorists killing and slaughtering innocence. no. the world's most powerful weapons system was,s is and shall forever be a free people willing to fight for freedom ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming here. thank you for remembering here freedom. [speaking french] may god bless each and every one of you france and the united states of america. [cheers and applause] >> the president of the french republic emmanuel macron. [speaking french] [applause] [speaking french] [speaking french] [speaking french] steve all right, as we watch emmanuel macron, the president of france make a few comments before the thousands gathered there today in normandy for the 80th anniversary of d-day, which happened 80 years ago today, a great invocation by that member of the armed services and then we just heard from. >> brian: secretary djou. >> steve: secretary of battle monuments commission and certainly no battle monument bigger than normandy. >> ainsley: pete joins us now, pete hegseth who has fought for our country valiantly along with all of these men that we're seeing sitting in the audience. pete, hard to believe this is 80 years ago, many of men were 18, 19, 20 years old. >> pete: emmanuel macron comes on. thought we were going to take the speech speaking in french. remind that all those boys that stormed the beaches of europe, we think of the commonality of the united states and europe, but it was a far place. those men right there had never met, didn't speak the same language of. had no natural reason to say hey, we are going to go save you and your family. i'm going to go my life in the process. it was the beginning of true american leadership. world war i was where it was on display. but world war ii, when these boys did what they did in normandy across france and across europe, they set the stage for now going on 80 years of american leadership that we take for granted now. >> lawrence: right. >> pete: we take for granted that the u.n. is here. we take for granted that we are the world's dominant currency. take for granted shipping lanes that are free. what happened on that day and years before before. that day pearl harbor and everything else so the french people and it's great to see that france, at least today, still recognize the enormity of that task. >> brian: so 80 years ago, think about this, what it would have been like in america. because this video of hitler taking paris. is he occupying all of europe. he takes what we now know is -- what we knew then as czechoslovakia. he takes over poland. it looks like the soviets and germans were going to be working together until they broke the nonaggression pack. think about this, we still weren't in the war and they took france, our first ally in the history of our nation. and we still weren't in. and we knew the time we got, in what we were up against then. a fort find expansive power who was gaining power by the day, and we could not waste any more time because u.k. was hanging on by a thread. >> pete: brian, it's a great reminder because, you know, there have been -- i was a part of two wars that went on for 20 years. it makes a lot of us reluctant to want to get involved and engaged in the world. in this moment there was a lot of reluctance of engaging in the world. up until the bombing of pearl harbor. >> peter: so many so until the europe taken over. seek peace but prepared for war and understand the nature of the threat that we face. what is hyperbole about what we must engage in and what is a truex ten threat. and there is just no doubt that the nazi war machine was something that wouldn't have stopped in europe. was going to gobble up everything that it could. and only took american engagement to keep the world free. >> lawrence: pete -- >> pete: i pray, i haven't been there recently that europe will remember the gift it was given by the united states and live for freedom. >> brian: i think the french do. start pouring money into their own defense. or else this could be happening again with a fort find vladimir putin. >> lawrence: real quickly before we bring in martha. you keep saying boys. but for the audience to understand, a lot of those young men now they were boys at the time. they changed their age. they weren't really 18. can you just talk about the significance of that real quickly? >> pete: i don't say that as a pejorative. i say that to make sure folks -- i have a 14-year-old. when i look at my son i see a kid. can you imagine three years from now he is carrying a rifle on his back and jumping off a landing craft on to a beach into enemy fire because he has chosen to lie about his age so he can go serve his country? i mean, and that's a product of families, of churches, of an education system that poured into those young men. >> lawrence: that's right. >> pete: so they understood service is something greater than themselves. we have to ask ourselves this right now. can we muster that same fortitude. >> brian: scribbled anti-american phrases in stanford. >> pete: can we muster that. that's a key question. if a republican can't muster that how do they defend themselves? >> ainsley: lloyd austin you saw him on stage. >> steve: he will be speaking in english. >> ainsley: video presentation after that. and then our president will speak. reading of the watch. the taps. gun salute and flyover. >> steve: somebody there right now is our own martha mccallum, the host of "the story" you see in the afternoons martha, as we watch this, and we are reminded what happened 80 years ago today, there in normandy, where so many thousands of americans just ran into essentially a buzz saw. 50,000 germans waiting for them. and killed so many. >> martha: absolutely. i would just point out you were talking earlier about the ronald reagan speech which happened at the 40th anniversary. this is a real book end. they recognized at the white house then this would be the first time a 40th anniversary many of these men were retiring from their jobs and might be likely to come to this reunion. and now you have 80 years after the. >> steve: martha. >> martha: after the storming of the beaches. yes. >> steve: pardon the zuption interruption. emmanuel macron has shifted to english. >> martha: absolutely, let's hear it. >> great generation. [speaking french] >> brian: generation same word in english and french. going back and forth jewing jazzer size. >> steve: martha you were saying? >> able to make the first time. most of the them the first time ever they have been back. now you have them 80 years later perhaps for the very last time. interested in what pete was saying about the boys. you know, they were boys. that's why reagan talked about the boys of pointe du hoc. the next line is the men who scaled the cliffs they did become men in this. extraordinary men watching this play out today. >> brian: we understand defense secretary lloyd austin is going to be making his way to the stage right now after emmanuel macron has finished up and have the video presentation and then there is going to be a lot of pressure on our president to really knock it out of the park and ground this historical service into some of the challenges of today. >> steve: i understand they are presenting the legion of honor award right now at this moment. let's take a look at that. [speaking french] [speaking french] [speaking french] >> giving these very prestigious awards. martha? >> martha: this is a stunning moment. this is obviously a very prestigious award. i have watched people receive the french legion of honor award prior to this. and, you know, this is a very highway of speaking of the relationship between our two countries and at this point it was a bond that was extraordinarily strong. >> steve: who are they presenting them to? i mean they could give them to any one of the 150 survivors who are there today. [applause] >> martha: indeed they could. i'm not sure who this gentleman is i'm trying to see what is on his sleeve. clearly, this is a very important moment as i said i have seen a number of world war ii veterans receive these awards and they are a thank you from the french government and, you know, you talked about the french government's stance now in these villages in normandy and there is president biden shaking this gentleman's hand as well. in these villages in normandy, there are american flags everywhere. american and french flags flying together. these are people whose watched a lot of this. their parents and grandparents watched this play out. they watched the storming of the nazi soldiers marching through in paris. and they were in a desperate, desperate situation to be helped. these are the men who rose to the occasion. >> ainsley: martha, i know we usually report on stories and we are not part of them. you can't help but be a part of this story. when you are there, what is it like? [applause] >> martha: it's genuinely stirring, ainsley. and, you know, these men when you talk to them, they are old, but there is a boy that lives within these men. they are humble, they are funny, they are warm, they are genuinely kind, just kind to each other, supportive of each other. for so many of them, they have told me over the years that they didn't talk about what they saw in world war ii for a good 40 to 50 years, many of them. and then, for whatever reason, in older age, these stories just came pouring out of them. because they do want people to remember. they want people to understand mostly the sacrifice of their friends who are buried here behind me. 9837 of them. and you walk by these crosses and where are they from? idaho, south dakota, new jersey, pennsylvania, they stretch all across the united states of america. and it is a valid question. would young people do this today? they were a unique and great generation. >> brian: we saw after 9/11 that they did, people rallied and it was a volunteer force at the time. i do feel good the answer would be yes. i also think, too. it didn't matter if you were a celebrity, an athletic star, you were drafted. you were. in yogi berra was part of the invasion. salinger emerging author part of the d-day invasion. >> steve: i googled this to figure out who is receiving this. and amongst the recipients, a british columbia second world war veteran who landed in normandy 80 years ago presented the award. josjoseph. other canadians start of the liberation. >> lawrence: president of the united states is giving them all challenge coins. martha, i'm struck by all these gentlemen in wheelchairs, their willingness to still to want to stand as they get this award. i'm struck by that. >> martha: i noticed that too. one of them struggling to get up. >> martha: absolutely. you know, these are proud, strong, men, and they will tell you, you know, that they are pretty tough. and this is a very beautiful moment for them. and as you mentioned, steve, the recognition of the canadian forces here, you know, they were up more juneau and sword and gold beaches. and this is an american veteran of world war ii who is receiving it now from emmanuel macron the french president. >> brian: you can imagine what life was like in france with occupied nazi germany looking for revenge from world war i. they finally got it. they take the capital. french resistance forms outside the country. they joined on this invasion. and they helped scripted which would eventually be a successful take back of the country, martha. absolutely commandos dropped behind the enemy lines before june 6th. they were trained to basically take people out, to take out german soldiers as they found them in the places that they were occupying. yesterday, i was in a house that was -- that was the nazi headquarters during the occupation. and it still had nazi paintings all over the walls, that home today was bought by an american from denver, timothy davis, and he uses it to house veterans who come back here to normandy. he takes care of them. he brought an american facilities for them. he has healthcare for them on site so they can be here. because these men want to come back. they feel that they left brothers behind here. and they want to bond with them. they want to walk the cemetery and they want to come back here he makes dream comes through after that extraordinary arrangement. >> brian: take the beach. another troops. 100 tons of military equipment. and their mission was simple. take back france. and they would. august 25th, 1944. paris was liberated. hitler would be dead. april 30th, 1945, commissioner suicide. they believed may 8th. germany would surrender. everything would change rapidly within a year. >> steve: i see a news flash, brian. president zelenskyy has just arrived in normandy, france. we do understand that apparently our president is going to refer to the existential threat ukraine faces from vladimir putin and russia in his comments. one of the things that the french leader, mr. macron said, was he praised american veterans on the stage by name to thank them individually for their sacrifice. the president, who as you can see right now is giving out the french foreign legion award says you have come here, you left everything behind and took risks. and, unfortunately, not only did they take risks, martha, but so much american blood and blood of our allies spilled 80 years ago today. >> martha: yeah. it's hard to convey the power of looking out at these white crosses and imagining the young men that lie beneath them all over this beautiful and sacred place and it is consecrated by the blood of these men as we heard in that beautiful convocation by karen meeker a short time ago. this is an extraordinary place. and think about the fact that the bedford boys from bedford, virginia, 19 young men from the same town who all died on d-day are buried here. among them several brothers as well. so there are just so many extraordinary stories of intense sacrifice. when ronald reagan said when he looked at the boys of pointe du hoc why did you do it? what caused you to put aside the human nature of self-preservation and risk everything to come across the ocean to save a country and keep it free? and there is tom hanks and steven speilberg and do you know what? they do deserve credit they brought these stories to life. and they made it real for so many americans. and i think revived the interest and the importance of understanding these stories for a lot of americans. and i think that's a significant contribution. >> steve: yeah, with saving private ryan, it was tom hanks took his men behind enemy lines to find private ryan, whose three brothers were killed in combat. and as peter doocy said at the top of this hour, martha, in addition to a number of sets of brothers, there is also a father buried right next to his son. >> martha: that is right. the son of theodore roosevelt who is buried next to one of his brothers here. you know, there were entire families who went off to fight in that lesson that we learned in saving private ryan is very real. i talk to people all the time who say you know, i had three of my grandfather, my two uncles, you know, just entire sections of this generation. nobody wanted to be left out. for these young men, if you were walking around your hometown in 1943, '44, you felt embarrassed. you felt like people wanted to understand why you weren't doing your part. and, you know, it's an -- it is the greatest generation. and i also thought in the convocation it was beautiful that karen meeker called on god to watch over those who will be called to be our next greatest generation. she talked about the threat that hangs over the world. and i think that bringing it to -- into the present, in the presence of these heroes is so important. >> lawrence: you know, martha, while we have pete hegseth on set, i think it's important to explain this. so, right now you are seeing emmanuel macron pin them. but if you look at the president. right after he pins them the president is coining these soldiers. and if you look closely, you will look at them look at the coin. pete, can you talk about this tradition of coining soldiers? >> pete: sure, i don't know exactly where it emanated from, but it's a long tradition, lawrence, you are exactly right. it's a challenge coin. and it is no better -- you can see it right there in his hand, no better coin to have than that of a commander-in-chief because -- maybe they are beyond the age at this point. at some point in their lives you could walk into the bar young service member and challenge someone else to what coin do you have? >> lawrence: that's right. >> pete: whoever has the highest ranking coin the other guy buys. >> steve: -to-who decides? >> pete: very easy the commander-in-chief wins every single time. if you got the secretary of defense or two star general, one star general or colonel, if you are caught without one in your pocket then you are definitely paying. >> steve: none of these men will ever buy a drink again in their lives? >> pete: exactly right, pete nor should they. >> ainsley: i don't think there is a rule against brothers fighting in a war together. we heard peter doocy say there are 45 sets of brothers and one father and son. but, remember the sullivan brothers who were five of them on that battle ship. the ship was attacked and all five of the brothers died. so -- and now, in america, we try to avoid that, correct? >> pete: yes. but it's also just such -- we're such a more, i don't want to say professionalized. that's a wrong word. >> steve: volunteer now. >> pete: more bureaucratic army that in the past because of the nature of the draft and everyone volunteering to go, you might have three or four boys or a bunch of men from the same town in the same unit because they were batched together. a more bureaucratic military doesn't really treat it that way. so it's highly unlikely that you would have one or two from the same town or from the same family in the same unit. you also don't have the same eat ethos. young men walking around town 1943 people would ask "why are you not there?" they would lie about age to go. >> ainsley: i do believe it would happen now. >> pete: it could. >> ainsley: after 9/11 some people enlisted. >> pete: i pray that's the case. i also fear the education that that man received is quite different from the education that young men receive today in america, too. and that does make a difference. and i pray that we educate kids to understand how special this nation is. >> brian: story today in stanford where they found the anti-american screed all over the place. they found the person responsible. princeton professor who has this course about great americans. and they used to have 25 people and now there is 225. and now there is all these kids lining up to take these courses in schools that weren't existing. so maybe there is a pushback when it comes to patriotism. this will be the last time we have a president that was born before the invasion. only a couple years. that's one thing that is pretty clear. is he from that generation. these people that fought the wars were probably the teachers that joe biden was dealing with, the cops, the firefighters, the business people. they all could say that they fought. >> pete: i want to give credence to this ceremony fox news channel covering. this experiencing it in our own lives. our kids didn't live on 9/11. dad what happened on 9/11. you have to be intentional about teaching it that future generations understand. >> brian: tunnel 2 towers does a great job. right here is lloyd austin, the secretary of defense. >> secreta president biden, dr., president macron. distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen and above all the veterans of world war ii, i am honored to stand again at this hallowed place. we bow our heads to remember the more than 9,000 u.s. and allied soldiers killed or wounded on d-day by hitler's forces. on behalf of the united states department of defense, i am here to give thanks, inadequate as that word may be. 80 years later, we thank the young americans who took the beaches, who helped liberate france b, and helped free this continent from nazi tyranny. we thank every allied warrior who fought for freedom on june 6th, 1944. and we thank the american and allied veterans who have rallied once more okay the shores of normandy. victors of d-day we are humbled by your presence. the young americans who fought through the clamor and the chaos on d-day have grown old or left us. and whenever a veteran of d-day is gathered to his maker in the fullness of time, after a long life, lived in freedom, he wins a final victory over hitler. you helped defeat what churchill called a mons monday catalog ofn crime. and you laid the foundation for a more just, free, and decent world. together with our allies, we built peace out of war. a hard-headed peace. a peace renewed by constant commitment. a peace forged by the generation that won the bloodiest war in human history. and so our gratitude must never fade. our memories must never dim. and our resolve must never fail. we still seek a world where aggression is a sin and where human rights are sacred and where all people can live in freedom and so we must rally, again, to defend the open post war world of rules, rights, and responsibilities. those rules protect us. those rights define us. and those responsibilities summon us once more. at this hinge in history we must again stand firm against aggression and tyranny. and as i said here, last year, if the troops of the world's democracies could risk their lives for freedom then, surely the citizens of the world's democracy can risk our comfort for freedom now. so let us, again, uphold the spirit of d-day let us, again, defend the principles that the allied armies carry. and let us, again, thank the heroes of d-day who kept freedom alive for us all. [applause] you saved the world. [applause] [applause] you saved the world and we must only defend it. gentlemen, we salute you. [applause] >> may god bless the american and allied troops who fought here. may god bless the united states of america, and may god bless all who cherish human freedom. thank you. [applause] [clock ticking] >> pappa, what was it like on d-day? [thunderous splashing waves] ♪ ♪ >> we had no idea what we were going to do or where it would happen, but it was the begi beginning. it was a very decisive battle for us because our mission it was to establish ourselves on the beach. >> we were on that boat, everybody talked about the same thing, helping each other and not getting killed. >> we started up this sandy area and there were hundreds of men inside. >> my father jumped about 1:30 in the morning on june 6th. the plane was too low. it was too fast. the fire coming up was so thick it was like -- >> wasn't something we had ever seen before in all of our training. >> i always have to say that there was a power of my mother's prayers that saved me that day. [wind] >> it gets to me thinking about it but as i look over all those crosses, i see people standing up, you would wave. i would have to go back because there is something there that draws you back. >> i have a very close friend that i knew by the name of edward mirovich. he received a very bad stomach wound and i could not even bandage it properly. we say goodbye to each other forever. he is laying here on the cemetery here in coalville. i think of the many men here that paid the ultimate price for the freedom of europe. >> young people w ought to know and need to know everybody i saw fight alongside them. they were willing to stand up and not all of them came back. >> it's our responsibility to tell those stories. people will not be forgotten as long as we keep talking about them