Dwight D. Eisenhower was born in Denison, Texas, in 1890. He was the President of the United States when I was born in Dallas, Texas, 68 years later.
People called me “Little Roy.” People called him “Ike.”
I worry that we have forgotten him.
Ike Eisenhower graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1915 when he was 24 years old. His superiors noticed his organizational abilities, and appointed him commander of a tank training center during World War I.
In 1933, he became aide to Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur, and in 1935 Ike went with him to the Philippines when MacArthur accepted the post of chief military adviser to that nation’s government.
On June 25, 1942, Ike Eisenhower was chosen over 366 senior officers to lead the Armed Forces of the United States in World War II.
After proving himself on the battlefields of North Africa and Italy in 1942 and 1943, Ike Eisenhower was appointed supreme commander of Operation Overlord – the Allied invasion of northwestern Europe.
Ike was now commanding the Armed Forces of all 49 Allied nations – including Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and China – in the war against Hitler and his minions. He personally planned and supervised two of the most consequential military campaigns of World War II: Operation Torch in the North Africa campaign in 1942–1943 and the invasion of Normandy in 1944.
Ike Eisenhower never talked like a tough guy, but only a fool would call him “weak” or “woke.”
This past July, Robert Reich – an eloquent and intelligent spokesperson on the left – quoted a passage from an anti-war speech that Ike Eisenhower made at the beginning of his presidency in 1953. Reich ended his quote just prior to Ike’s unsettling reference to the crucifixion of Christ.
Eloquent and intelligent people on the right refused to believe that a celebrated warrior had ever made a speech that could be classified as “anti-war.”
Curious, I decided to get to the bottom of it.
Here is a link to the complete transcript and original recording of the speech that President Dwight D. Eisenhower made before the American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 16, 1953, from the Statler Hotel in Washington, D.C.
This is the passage from that speech that got everyone worked up:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals, it is some 50 miles of concrete pavement.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
The title of that speech was originally “Chance for Peace,” but due to the vivid mental image contained in the middle of the speech, it quickly became known as the “Cross of Iron” speech.
Words have impact when they contain vivid mental images.
I own guns, but I am not a hunter. Neither my family nor my friends have ever seen my guns. But in the unlikely event of a home invasion, I am adequately prepared to protect the people I love.
Working in a heavy steel fabrication shop from the age of 14, I spent my formative years surrounded by violent men who were older, larger, and stronger than me, but I was never afraid of them. I occasionally paid a price in blood for my lack of fear, but I never regretted my defiance.
General John Tecumseh Sherman was a man familiar with violence. In 1864, when he was ravaging Atlanta during the Civil War, Sherman wrote a letter to a friend saying,
“I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation.”
I like Ike.
I also like John McCain, who spent five-and-a-half years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. Speaking at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1999, McCain said,
“Nothing, not the valor with which it is fought nor the nobility of the cause it serves, can glorify war. War is wretched beyond description, and only a fool or a fraud could sentimentalize its cruel reality.”
Based upon his speech to the assembled leadership of America’s armed forces, I am not sure that I like our current Secretary of War.
It has been my observation that men who have experienced real violence are reluctant to speak of it. They are prepared to take decisive action when they must, but they leave the “tough-guy” talk to lesser men.
Roy H. Williams
Todd Sattersten is a book connoisseur. He reads, writes, reviews, and publishes books. In his newly released book, 100 Best Books for Work and Life: What They Say, Why They Matter, and How They Can Help You, Todd showcases 100 of what he considers to be the best books, including a wide range of topics, including personal growth, creativity, habits, leadership, sales, and communication.
Since 2021, Todd has served as publisher of Bard Press, that legendary publishing house of business books that was founded by the incomparable Ray Bard. Todd curated his list of 100 books to include only those that are authoritative, well-written, and brimming with ideas that challenge conventional thinking and inspire fresh solutions. Fittingly, his own book does precisely that. Listen and be fascinated at MondayMorningRadio.com