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113 4 Dwight D. Eisenhower Sean N. Kalic General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower has come to represent many things to many different people of several generations. For the veterans of World War II, he was the commanding general who planned and oversaw the initial landings in North Africa and Italy. Next, as supreme Allied commander of Europe, he planned, oversaw the preparation of, and made the decision to launch Operation Overlord on the beaches of Normandy. While achieving the Allied victory in Europe, Eisenhower rose to the rank of five-star general. He briefly took a civilian position as president of Columbia University before Harry S. Truman asked him to become supreme Allied commander of the new North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the immediate postwar period. After retiring from military service, Eisenhower found another way to continue to serve his country in the midst of the Korean War. In 1952 Eisenhower ran as the Republican candidate for president of the United States. After winning the presidency, Eisenhower led the United States through a politically turbulent period in the Cold War. Negotiating a truce to the Korean War, supporting covert actions against Communists in Iran and Guatemala, providing funding to the French for their war against Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh in Indochina, and firmly entrenching a reliance on nuclear weapons in the United States military are some of the primary actions and decisions made by Eisenhower during his tenure as the president. Beyond his steadfast efforts to combat the forces of Communism, Eisenhower also supported the development of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; negotiated treaties for the preservation of the seabed and Antarctica, with an objective of keeping all frontiers free for the sake of scientific research for all; and encouraged the United States to invest heavily in science and math educa- 114 sean n. kaliC tion in the context of the space race with the Soviet Union. While supporting these various military and scientific endeavors, Eisenhower remained persistently committed to ensuring that the United States remained fiscally sound and determined to avoid bankrupting itself, despite its position as the primary bulwark against the expansionistic designs of the Soviet Union and its satellite nations. From his earliest days in Texas to his final days at his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the life of Dwight D. Eisenhower can be characterized as one of “duty, honor, country.” He consistently demonstrated a strong work ethic, phenomenal leadership skills, and steadfast belief in the goodness of the United States. This chapter details his strong commitment to service to the United States first in the military and later as president of the United States.1 In Denison, Texas, on October 14, 1890, David Jacob and Ida Elizabeth Eisenhower welcomed their third son, Dwight David Eisenhower. David and Ida had met seven years earlier (1883) at Lane University in Lecompton, Kansas.2 David, who had aspirations of studying to become an engineer, had moved to Hope, Kansas , with his family in the 1870s, as part of a group of River Brethren, a branch of the Mennonite sect that pursued farming. David’s father , Jacob Eisenhower, was one of the leaders of the sect and had a 160-acre tract of land in Dickinson County, Kansas.3 The county seat was Abilene, which was approximately twenty miles northeast of Jacob Eisenhower’s farm. In the 1870s the city of Abilene was the railhead for the “northern end of the Chisholm Trail” and served as the embarkation point for cattle as they made their way to the stockyards in Chicago. It was a “rough, wild, and dangerous place” for its 8,000 residents at the time, not yet the quiet, bucolic community where David and Ida would later raise their family.4 Ida Stover was from the Shenandoah Valley village of Mount Sidney, Virginia. Upon the death of her mother when Ida was fifteen, Ida’s father, who had an additional ten children to care for (seven boys and three girls), sent Ida to live with her maternal grandparents .5 Starting at age sixteen, Ida worked as a housekeeper and later as a schoolteacher. In 1882 two of Ida’s brothers moved to Topeka, Kansas, and Ida joined them there.6 A year later she enrolled in Lane University with the intention of studying music. There she met David Eisenhower. David and Ida married on September 23, 1885, without finishing their studies at the university. Using $2,000 his father gave him [18...

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