President Trump paid tribute Thursday to old men who were once the young Americans who stormed an occupied and fortified shore 75 years ago, and he called the storied D-Day invasion “an epic battle and the ferocious eternal struggle between good and evil.”

Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders of the nations that defeated Nazi Germany joined the thinning ranks of veterans of the June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion at the cemetery where nearly 10,000 American war dead are buried.

Trump honored the sacrifice and patriotism of veterans in their 90s, who sat hunched behind him in a chill wind at the last major milestone anniversary most are likely to see. The avowed nationalist celebrated American bravery and the unity of fighting forces that landed here and pushed on into Europe, helping to turn the tide of the war.

“They came from the farms of a vast heartland, the streets of glowing cities and the forges of mighty industrial towns,” Trump said of the teenagers and young men who approached the Normandy shores. “Before the war, many had never ventured beyond their own community. Now, they had come to offer their lives halfway across the world.”