Thursday’s D-Day commemorations in Normandy, France were a deeply moving occasion.

Many of the last surviving veterans of the day made their way (most likely for the last time) to the scene of that glorious horror 80 years ago to the day.

Even President Biden did not fail at the task in hand. While standing by French President Emmanuel Macron he did suddenly do one of those strange body-freezes that come over him — as though he is trying to locate and sit on an invisible chair.

But when he got up to speak he spoke well. At no stage did he start to reminisce about what he had done on the day.

We were not treated to one of those strange times when Biden inserts himself into historic situations.

I might add that his audience yesterday might be the only one in the world in which the President looks like a relatively young whipper-snapper.

But his speech was solid. In it he reminded the world of the cost of the allied mission to liberate the continent of Europe from Nazi fascism.

As he said, among the first waves of soldiers landing that day in 1944 “it was estimated that 80% of them would be killed within hours. That was the estimate. But they were brave. They were resolute. And they got the job done.”

And one point that Biden brought up the rather glaring absence from the commemorations.

Because ordinarily the Russian president has been present at these anniversary commemorations. This year Vladimir Putin was not invited.

People will have their own opinions over whether that was right or wrong. The Russian public have long felt that their colossal contribution to defeating Nazism (more than 20 million Russian dead) has been undervalued in the West.

And it is true that for many years the Russian contribution was played down. Partly because the USSR went into a deep freeze from the rest of the world and then became an enemy.

At the same time it would have been difficult to have Putin present.

Not only because Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was there. But because the aggression that Biden was condemning in the Nazis is indeed akin to the aggressive expansionism of Vladimir Putin.

And not just against Ukraine in this decade but against the nation of Georgia in 2008. Indeed, while saying that democracy is “more at risk now than at any point since World War II,” Biden described Putin in his remarks as a “tyrant intent on domination.”

However accurate those remarks, it’s not clear that a D-Day commemoration was the best time to air them.

The success of the Normandy landings and the whole pincer movement from East and West to destroy Nazi fascism once and for all was an allied effort. Albeit an effort with one ally — Joseph Stalin — who was a tyrant in his own right.

But it was alliance forced upon us by the realities of the time, and the decision to unite with a rival in order to destroy an enemy.

Still, it was hard not to think of an earlier US president and an earlier speech in that place.

Because of course on the 40th anniversary of the D-Day landings it was Ronald Reagan who stood in that place.

That speech in 1984 has a claim to be the greatest speech of his presidency. Because what Reagan said that day to the veterans and to the world has perhaps even more resonance today than it did then.

Reagan also spoke about the heroism of those American men who scaled the cliffs under unbelievable fire and against tremendous odds. But they scaled them anyway, those American Rangers, plucked from all across this nation.

They pulled themselves over the top “and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe.”

Speaking to more veterans then than are alive today he asked “Why did you do it?” And he answered his question. It was because, as he said, “they had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next.”

That faith — that confidence — not just in a just in America but in the goodness and righteousness of their cause, is something that has taken a battering since Reagan spoke in Normandy.

Today a generation of Americans have been taught that rather than being the greatest force for good in the world this nation is the cause of all evil in the world.

Ask an American college student today what America has given the world and more often than not you will be given a list of the sins of America.

A generation has been indoctrinated into this alternative history. A history created from disputable claims and malicious assertions.

But Reagan was right. And there is something he said then that he can teach us today.

Because of course this nation is still bruised from more recent conflicts. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have led a generation of civilians — and some servicemen — to question their sacrifice.

Speak to the men and women who served in these more recent conflicts and they are often jaded and doubtful.

Much of the country has in turn been persuaded to think that America can do no good in the world.

A new generation of Republicans, as well as Democrats, have come to the conclusion that the world is better off without our meddling and without our interference.

But Ronald Reagan knew how wrong that was, and how wrong it would always be.

As he said, 40 years ago: “It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We’ve learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent.”

Biden did fine. But these sentiments of Reagan will live forever. Because they are true.