COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France (AP) - When D-Day veterans set foot on the Normandy beaches and other World War II sites, they express a mix of joy and sadness. Joy at seeing the gratitude and friendliness of the French toward those who landed on June 6, 1944. Sadness as they think of their fallen comrades and of another battle now being waged in Europe: the war in Ukraine.

As a bright sun was rising over the wide band of sand of Omaha Beach on Monday, 78 years on, U.S. D-Day veteran Charles Shay expressed thoughts for his comrades who fell that day. “I have never forgotten them and I know that their spirits are here,” he told The Associated Press.

The 98-year-old Penobscot Native American from Indian Island, Maine, took part in a sage-burning ceremony near the beach in Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer.

Shay, who now lives in Normandy, was a 19-year-old U.S. Army medic when he landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944.

He said he was sad to see war in Europe once again, so many years later.

“Ukraine is a very sad situation. I feel sorry for the people there and I don’t know why this war had to come, but I think the human beings like to, I think they like to fight. I don’t know,” he said.

“In 1944 I landed on these beaches and we thought we’d bring peace to the world. But it’s not possible.”

This year, Shay handed over the remembrance task to another Native American, from the Crow tribe, Julia Kelly, a Gulf War veteran, who performed the sage ritual. “Never forget, never forget,” she said. “In this time, in any time, war is not good.”

Shay’s message to young generations would be “to be ever vigilant.”

“Of course I have to say that they should protect their freedom that they have now,” he said.

For the past two years, D-Day ceremonies were reduced to a minimum amid COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.

This year, crowds of French and international visitors - including veterans in their 90s - are back in Normandy to pay tribute to the nearly 160,000 troops from Britain, the U.S., Canada and elsewhere who landed there to bring freedom.

Several thousand people were expected Monday at a ceremony later at the American Cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach in the French town of Colleville-sur-Mer. Amid the dozens of U.S. veterans expected to attend was Ray Wallace, 97, a former paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division.

On D-Day, his plane was hit and caught fire, forcing him to jump earlier than expected. He landed 20 miles away from the town of Sainte-Mere-Eglise, the first French village to be liberated from Nazi occupation.

Less than a month later, he was taken prisoner by the Germans. He was ultimately liberated after 10 months and returned to the U.S.

On D-Day, Allied troops landed on the beaches code-named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold, carried by 7,000 boats. On that single day, 4,414 Allied soldiers lost their lives, 2,501 of them Americans. More than 5,000 were wounded.

On the German side, several thousand were killed or wounded.