I just want to know what it feels like to be here on the 80th. It may be the last of these reunions. I don't I mean, we if you do the math, if you were say you were 17 years old and you were making your first trip into combat on June 6th of 1944, you do that. Do the math. You're now 97 years old. that there, here. I mean, the first thing I say to any of the veterans that I happen to made is don't get up. You know, because, you know, they're more or less wheelchair, wheelchair bound. But there they are, resplendent in their patches, in their hats, in their caps, in them, and, and the memories and I ponder what these last 80 years have been for them. I want to ask them, what's the most extraordinary thing you've witnessed? Yeah. Since that day. and there's an awful lot to to take note of. But would any of it have happened if this day had not been? Well, I wonder, you know, since you lead me straight into that question, it's probably okay. Bar the Cold War, when there wasn't a raging war in Europe, is probably the most difficult, most existential crisis for everybody since their sacrifice with Russia having invaded Ukraine with a literal raging war in Europe, I never thought there'd be a land war in Europe in my lifetime once again, because it had it proven to be so disastrous for all of humanity. The last time somebody tried that. And it funny how often it comes out of the ego of one human being, one guy, back in the 1930 says, no, I'm going to solve all these problems because I know what what works and what does not work. I, I think, you know, look on the late historian and I'm as opinionated as any not that you're ever going to come across. But there was this thought that America, particularly America, was lazy, was divided, was undisciplined, that couldn't get its act together, wouldn't that would never band together in order just to do the right thing by choice. And when I'm here, I think of a bunch of kids. It was a young force that came here. They were somewhere between if you were 25 years old, they called you pops, or they called you the old Man and they, and then they were they left absolute all, all of the comforts of a very comfortable America, safe America on the other side of the ocean. And they put themselves here for what? because it was the right thing to do. And they were not defending the status quo. They were not, gaining, territory. They're not here for riches. They were not here to conquer anything. They were really here in order to to to mend the future. If I can coin a word that has just come out in a book that I read not too long ago, that there was an article I want to say in the Bedford newspaper in which on, on the, on the 6th of June, because of the time lag, made it possible for the 6th of June to have this be the headlines. The United States of America and it said, the next 50 years of European history is being decided right now in the in the fields and beaches of Normandy. It was not about everything that had happened prior to 1944. It was actually about what was going to happen in 1954 and 64. I was born in 1956. had D-Day not happened? And that's not hard to imagine. Here you can look around and we can see the invasion in our mind's eye. We can see that day, but we can also imagine with a little bit of turn of frame, what if it had not happened? If this had stayed as it had been a conquered territory by the one of the most murderous regimes? There we go. And, there's a Fedex is delivering my, my, my over lunch right now. what would have been like if, all those that young forces and the Canadians and their English and all the Free French did not come along and said that those people are wrong. Can I ask you something? Because one man is doing it again, Vladimir Putin, that he hasn't been invited. He was, you know, ten years ago, but this time not. Do you think when you think about it, Americans would do this again? British would do it again. I mean, we're in the fight of our lives again. Well, yes. You don't have to go back very far. I can believe as early as 1939 and 1940 and big parts of 1941, there was a huge vocal, section of the United States of America that said, no way Charles Lindbergh led the America First. There were there were literally Nazi Party rallies in Madison Square Garden in which Adolf Hitler and George Washington, their their their images were up on stage at the same time. It wasn't until, of course, that we were attacked that everybody kind of like, wised up and realized that something very venal was going on in the world. You can't help but wonder, where would it be right now? And I have absolute 100% faith in the American people and the concept of what is right and what is wrong. And if something as definitive as what happened in Europe back then, I don't think there'll be any question that it would take time, but would not be overnight. It would be it would be thought out. It would be, I think, taking into account all the lessons that were learned, what happens when you don't do it right over a long course? Can I ask you? I walked over there. I looked at the beach. It's Omaha beach. the the cliffs that those boys had to scale. Then they had to rush, you know, and start to liberate a place they didn't even know anything about. And as you say, they were so young. You did that film, Saving Private Ryan. I know you're an actor, but everybody says it's one of the most realistic depictions of what happened that day. Can you recall what it was like actually filming that and putting yourselves in their boots for that period of time? Well, of course, you know, part of it is glamorous fun, you know? but at the other time, as soon as the cameras started rolling and everything started happening, there was a tactile quality to the confusion. One of the things that happened was the special effects guys would come up and all over the beach were these little red flags. They said, hey, be careful where the little red flags are because there's explosive charges underneath and it's going to throw some stuff up. And whatever you do, don't step over there because that's a whole air around. It's going to throw a guy up in the air, and a guy down there is going to be lit on fire. So try to stay away from anything. You put that together and says, well, this is pretty glamorous. Stay at work and what time's lunch? But then it begins. And the the first thing they did was removed all those red flags. And I realized, you know, something goes right now we are not in any danger at all whatsoever. But the verisimilitude, if I dare use that does that word does put it in a different sort of form. There is a moment when, of course, as actors, we're just pretending, but there comes a moment where the reason we're there is to capture the truth as the film, as the as the film rolls. And to be cold, wet, scared and have it be awfully noisy for an awful long time. I remember, when we were, when we were shooting and and by the way, this is one of the reasons Steven Spielberg wanted to make the movie. He said, finally, I'll be able to do with film technology. I'll actually be able to capture what happened on Omaha Beach, and here's why I'm going to do it. First, it's going to take three weeks, and secondly, it's going to be every single day. And third, we're going to have all kinds of stuff going off and forth in between there will make some sort of movie at the same time, we're trying to load it up with as much authentic, and I wanted to do use the word again, verisimilitude as we can. Okay. That's our job as filmmakers. It's also our job as lay historians because for good or for bad, that movie is a document that has to accurately reflect the tenor of that day. And I'd like to think that we did. Yeah. on this day. President Biden is also obviously giving his big speeches, and it'll all be in the in the cloak of democracy. That's what we're defending democracy here. Yeah. And and without mentioning, you know, Donald Trump, he will talk about the stakes for America and for the world. Finally, do you worry about the United States in case in terms of its commitment to democracy and freedom and everything these people died for, if there's another Trump I think I think there's always a reason to be worried about the short term. But I look at the longer term of what this what happened. I think there is a there's a ongoing look, our Constitution says we the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union. That journey to a more perfect union has missteps in it. We know we can. I can catalog them as much as you can. And you're a professional journalist, and I'm just a guy that makes movies and reads books and a historian and okay, and a late historian. I'll take that to. Over the long term, however, we inevitably make progress towards, I think that more perfect union. That's what it. And how does it come about? It comes about because not because of somebody's narrative of who is right or who is a victim or not. It comes out of the slow melding of the truth. Two of the actual practical life that we end up living. It comes down to the good deed, that is, that is practiced with your neighbor, with your local virtues. And I will always have faith that the United States of America and the Western societies that have adopted more or less the same sort of democracy cannot help but turn towards what is right. And they told us how, they were, kids, by and large, they were well practiced. Some of them, you know, years ago, I actually on the 65th, which is the last time we were here, I happened to have dinner with the great Andy Rooney, who himself was who was a veteran. He flew and he said, oh, come on, they're not all heroes. Some of them some of them were in the 38th Shoe Repair Battalion. And yet, even if you were in a shoe repair battalion, you know, there were guys if you read Ambrose, there were guys whose job it was. They came to Europe to do one thing and one thing only to take busted weapons and make them workable. Yet to take exploded jeeps cable to get a bunch of parts in order to get them moving again. Those guys lost as much sleep and had as bad teeth from the horrible food that they ate and were as exhausted anybody else was because they woke up every morning, said, what do I have to do in order to further up this cause of of liberation? I'm not going to discount anybody for what they went through at that time, even if all they did was type out very, very important, important papers on a typewriter somewhere. Well, well behind the lines. I go back again to that concept. It was the great communal effort. And periodically in the United States of America, great communal efforts come to be, and they end up changing the world for the people who who take part of that and actually want to end up. I can't say it enough. I know that probably like a little goody two shoes, but, they do the right thing and they wake up every morning and they think, well, what do I need to do today in order to create that more perfect union that's always seems to be just slightly out of our grasp. But on the cusp of reality, I like to thank Tom Hanks. Thank you so much.
