certainly on these big anniversaries, the 70th, 60th, 50th. i think it was important for the president to put an exclamation point on the line we have to tell these stories. we have to tell their stories. 70 years from now, 700 years from now. to the earlier point you just raised about, you know, the young men who were here and many of them died here and climbing the cliffs on the 50th anniversary i was fortunate enough to be introduced to the son of the colonel from the 25th rangers who climbed those cliffs. the rick, was it colonel rudder? yes. i met his son and i asked i asked the boy if it his dad ever talked about that day, and he said, no, very rarely did he talk about that day but he would often mention one distinct memory that he had about that day, and this gets to, again, who we are and what we think
can recall where the rangers climbed a 100-foot high sheer cliff to extract the germans from a gun position at the sop of point du hoc. it s a pivotal point in the battle of dae day and omaha beach. point du hoc looks out over the channel, commanding position with interlocking fields of fire and i met at the top of point du hoc the son of colonel rudder, i believe, who led the 25th rangers, scaling up that wall and i was talking with his son and i asked the son, did your father ever talk about this much? he never really talked about it other than to say that he was always amazed that the germans who were inside those pill boxes and revettments at point du hoc, he could always assume they d be looking out into the ocean, 25th