Tributes and Tears

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After the speech, the President and his wife gamely descended into a German bunker, then flew to the American cemetery above Omaha Beach. Walking alone arm in arm among the geometrically perfect rows of graves, they paid silent homage to the American dead. At the grave of an unknown soldier, the First Lady placed some flowers; later she laid a spray of carnations and blue irises at the tombstone of Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr., the son of his presidential namesake, who landed on Utah Beach with the 4th Infantry Division and died of a heart attack one month later.

Then, before 2,000 people at the Omaha Beach memorial, the President read from a letter sent to him by Lisa Zanatta Henn, 28, of Millbrae, Calif. Many years ago, Peter Robert Zanatta of the 37th Engineer Combat Battalion had told his little girl that he would one day return to Normandy. After he died of cancer, his daughter vowed to make the pilgrimage on his behalf. "I'm going there, Dad," she wrote in the letter Reagan read, "and I'll I see the beaches and the barricades and the monuments." As the President read, his voice began to crack. "I'll see the graves, and I'll put flowers there just like you wanted to do. I'll never forget what you went through, Dad, nor will I let anyone else forget. And, Dad, I'll, always be proud."

By then, the President's eyes were red, and he could barely continue reading. Near him was Lisa, who wept openly. Afterward, the First Couple, still shaken, boarded their helicopter and flew to Utah Beach. In the end, pride and tears seemed the sweetest memorial to the fallen, and the most eloquent way of saying goodbye.

—By Pico Iyer.

Reported by Thomas A. Sancton and Barrett Seaman with the President