Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight David Eisenhower was born on October 14, 1890. He was born in the town of Denison, Texas to the mother Ida Elizabeth Eisenhower, and David Jacob Eisenhower. He had a very tough time growing up, most of the time their family was poor, as a quote he said, "if we were poor I wouldn't know, we were a nice caring family." Also many rich kids would make fun of his hand-me-down shoes, and ripped clothes. Once he got into a fight with one of the kids, and won, but his mother was a pacifist, or someone who doesn't like war or violence. He got so mad because he got in trouble; he ran up an apple tree and started punching it until his fists were all bloody. Eisenhower graduated from Ailene High School in 1909. He married Mamie Geneva Doud on July 1st, 1916.

Eisenhower worked for two years to support him and his autistic brother Edgar for college. When he was accepted into West Point in 1911, his parents were against militarism. At West Point he hoped to make the baseball team, he loved baseball; but when he didn't make it, he said "this is one of the biggest disappointments of my life, perhaps the greatest." He made the football team, but he injured his knee so he wasn’t able to play. He graduated in 1915, and was assigned to an infantry position at various positions around Texas. During World War I he arose as a strong leader and #3 leader of his tank regiment. And temporary second lieutenant; although he was never in combat, he helped get tank crews ready for battle. Eventually he was offered a student spot at command and general staff college.

After the Japanese sneak attack of Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941 Eisenhower or later called "Ike" was assigned to the general staff in Washington D.C. In 1942 he was appointed to commanding general of the European theater and was based in London. Later in that same year he was promoted to five stars supreme allied commander, and was moved to the Northern African Theater. In 1943 Ike met with President Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin to open a second front on the coast of Normandy France: Operation Overlord. June 6th, D-Day, over 10,000 planes, 1,100 warships, and transports, and 4 million men were on there way to mark the day in history, as the largest sea invasion of all time. When Germany surrendered on May 7th 1945, Berlin the German capital was broken up into 2 parts: East Berlin was Allied and West Berlin was the Soviet Union's. Eisenhower was put in command as Allied Governor of all U.S. troops in East Berlin.

After World War II ended, many people wanted him to run for president. Many Republicans held a draft Eisenhower movement to persuade him to be a candidate. He defeated Senator Robert Taft for the Republican nomination. He chose Richard Nixon as his running mate, whose daughter married Ike's grandson. They had more then 6 million votes over democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson. The first thing he did when he was in the White House was he made flight plans to go to Korea and end the war. He also passed the first Federal Highway Act of 1961. He also passed the Eisenhower Doctrine that would allow the use of force against any Middle Eastern country that is revolting into communism.

The public was very pleased with Eisenhower in his first term and quickly defeated his opponent for a second term. A new problem occurred, civil rights. A Supreme Court case between Brown V. Board of Education, ended segregation in schools. In 1957 a group of nine African Americans entered Little Rock High School. The situation got so bad that Eisenhower had to bring in armed National guards to protect the students. As a quote from one of the students, ”I didn't know that people be so cruel and heartless." Also, Eisenhower appointed Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court justice. The last thing Ike did was annex Alaska in 1959, the 49th state, and Hawaii the 50th state in 1959 also.

In Eisenhower’s Farewell address he stated that the “Soviet Union is the evil in our modern world." After he left the oval office, he settled down at his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania with his wife Mamie in 1967. On Sundays he enjoyed going to church and devoted the whole day to playing golf and dining with his wife. He also gave foreign affairs advice to any president who wanted it. Eisenhower died of heart failure on March 28 1969 in Washington D.C. He is buried next to his wife who died ten-years later. He goes down as a great soliders, brilliant president and an amazing humanitarian.