Normandy, France, June 6, 1994: President Bill Clinton speaks at the ceremony commemorating the D-Day landing at the Pointe du Hoc Ranger Monument near Omaha Beach as a helicopter hovers overhead and battleships — anchored off shore — glint through the mist.

The gathered crowd included many U.S. Ranger veterans who scaled the 100-foot cliffs to knock out the German artillery overlooking the landing beaches. At the ceremony, President Clinton asked the veterans to stand. “We are the children of your sacrifice,” Clinton told the Ranger veterans. “We are the sons and daughters you saved from tyranny’s reach ... The most difficult days of your lives brought us 50 years of freedom.”

Some 70% of the Rangers that landed at Point du Hoc that day were killed, wounded or reported missing.

Read Stars and Stripes G.K. Hodenfield’s 1944 report on the Ranger assault here.