poised to give a consequential speech on the world stage, returning to the beaches of normandy again this morning to deliver remarks on the threats against democracy and freedom at home and overseas. now, this speech coming just hours after president biden met with ukrainian president zelenskyy in paris announcing $225 million in new aid and apologizing for the political gridlock in washington that delayed that package. nbc s kelly o donnell is traveling with the president in france. also with us, david ignatius, foreign affairs columnist for the washington post, nbc news military analyst, retired colonel jack jacobs and presidential historian mark updegrove. it s great to have all of you with us. kelly, set the stage for us as we await the president. reporter: well, it is a spectacular setting. when you see how the white house has set up the president s lectern on the cliff. this is a cliff that 80 years ago american army rangers scaled that cliff using knives and pieces
Artillery fire on both sides was constant this. Entire villages were wiped off the map and. Never before had so many soldiers been killed in such a limited area. Or Dead Mans Hill was the scene of particularly bitter fighting. At the end of the Battle One Of The Hills Two summits was ten meters lower than it was before. Served as a laboratory for testing new weapons the german army fired poison gas in shells here for the first time. This allowed for more accurate targeting. The effect on french troops was devastating. The battle lasted from february to december one Nine Hundred Sixteen. A total of about Sixty Million shells were fired. When these missions corrode the casing comes off of it a lot of them youre left with stuff like t. N. T. High explosive which is a percentage of so now you have the constituent weight on the bottom of the ocean which will continually. Put stuff in the environment like that for the next thousand years. These materials accumulate in the ecosystem and pose
who died taking this cliff are buried. i spoke of what the what to fall on the done to defend freedom today as a look out of his battlefield. and all the bunkers and bomb craters are still surrounded one thought comes to mind my guy my god how did they do it how are these americans willing to risk everything deir, everything give everything? they were. americans like sergeant leonard well, as far as your lender, lomo from new jersey, he s one of the first ranges have jumped off his ship and run toward the cliff he almost was shot right above the hip. additionally, and he didn t want unsure, but he was he kept going at one point, he was scaling the clifton and other ranger yelled i m not sure i can make it a labile you back with every ounce is 20 had in
and inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard, the rangers clawed, literally clawed their way up this mighty precipice until at last they reached the top. they breached the atlantic wall and they turned in that one effort the tide of the war and began to save the world. ladies and gentlemen, yesterday i paid my respects at the american cemetery just a few miles from here where many of those rangers died were buried. i i spoke about what the fallen had done to defend freedom. today as we look out at this battlefield and all the bunkers and bomb craters that are still surrounded, one thought comes to mind, my god, my god, how did they do it? how were these americans willing to risk everything, dare