The world will turn its eyes Thursday to the beaches of Normandy, France, paying tribute to the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion and the few surviving veterans of that battle that changed the course of World War II.

For President Donald Trump, it is another moment to praise alliances and military service, on the heels of defending his decision not to serve in Vietnam. World leaders will gather in heartfelt tribute to alliance and sacrifice and a unified vow for enduring unity, outweighing any national or political skirmish of the moment, Miami Herald reports.

Trump is expected to give a speech while touring the beaches and an American military cemetery in France. He stuck to the script Wednesday in the first of two days of D-Day tributes at a moving ceremony in Portsmouth, England, from which the 1944 invasion was launched.

Trump did his part with a 90-second recitation of some of the prayer that President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered to a worried nation just getting word of the fighting. The president, with images of an American flag and Roosevelt projected behind him, read to the crowd: "Almighty God, our sons, pride of our nation, this day, have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion and our civilization and to set free a suffering humanity."