Living/Non- Living Hero #1

     My hero is Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was a five-star general in the US Army and was the 34th United States President.

     Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower was born on October 14, 1890 in Denison, TX to David Jacobs Eisenhower and Ida Stover Eisenhower. Dwight was the third of his parent’s seven sons. His family lived in a tiny house near a railroad track where Dwight’s father worked cleaning train engines.

     Once his Dwight was a year and a half years old his family move to Abilene, Kanas where his family first lived. They moved there so David could get a better job at his brother-in-law’s creamery. Soon afterwards Dwight’s 10-month-old brother Paul died from diphtheria when Dwight was 4 years old.

     After graduating from Abilene High School, Dwight started working with his father and uncle at the Belle Springs Creamery and also worked as a moonlighting fireman. The money that Dwight earned he used to pay for his younger brother Edgar’s tuitions at University of Michigan. They both had deal, Edgar would take tuitions for two years and then switch places with Dwight afterwards. Lucky for Edgar he would never have to leave.

     In 1911, Dwight was accepted into the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. There he was a star on the football field, until a knee injury forced to stop playing. Finally in 1915, Dwight graduated from West Point as a second lieutenant.

     After graduating from West Point, Dwight was station in Texas, where he met and started dating Mamie Geneva Doud. Then nine months later, on July 1, 1916 the couple got married. Dwight was promoted to first lieutenant during his wedding.

     During the first few years of Dwight’s military career, Mamie and he moved from place to place all around the country. In 1917, Mamie gave birth to their first child, Doud Dwight. That same year the United States entered World War 1. Dwight wanted to be ordered overseas, but was chosen to be a Commander of a tank. He trained at Camp Colt in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Soon afterwards Dwight started rising up the ranks, by 1920 he was promoted to Major.

     In 1921, Dwight’s and Mamie’s son Doud died from Scarlet Fever at age 3. Mamie soon gave birth to a second son, John Sheldon Doud, in 1922. During that year, Dwight was took the role of Executive Officer to General Fox Conner in the Panama Canal Zone. In 1924, General Fox persuaded Dwight to apply at the Army’s Prestige Graduates School and was accepted. In 1926, Dwight graduated first in his class of 245 students.

     From 1927 to 1929 Dwight reported for the War Department under General John Pershing. After his tour was down in 1929, Dwight was appointed Chief Military Aide under General Douglas MacArthur. During 1935 to 1939 Dwight served as General MacArthur’s Assistant Military Advisor to the Philippines. Dwight later returned to the States in 1940.

     Over the next two years he was stationed in California and Washington State. In 1941, after being transferred to Fort Sam Houston, Eisenhower became Chief of Staff for the Third Army. Eisenhower was then promoted to Brigadier General for his leadership of the Louisiana Maneuvers. Later that year he was transferred to the War Plans division in Washington, D.C. In 1942, he was then promoted to Major General. Months later, he became Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces and led Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa.

      On June 6, 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized Operation Overload or also known as D-Day. In December, Dwight was then promoted to a Five-Star General, which was the highest ranking in the US Army. After Germany surrendered in 1945, Eisenhower was made Military Governor of the US Occupied Zone. He then returned home to Abilene as a welcomed hero. A few months later, he was appointed US Army Chief of Staff. In 1948, he was elected president of Columbia University, he stayed there until December of 1950, when he decided to leave Columbia to accept a position as first Supreme Allied Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. While in Paris with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Eisenhower was encouraged by Republican emissaries to run for president of the United States.   

    In 1952, Eisenhower retired from active service and returned to Abilene to announce that he was running for the Republic Party nomination. On November 4, 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower won the election by a landslide and was elected the United States' 34th president. His domestic policy picked up where Roosevelt's New Deal and Fair Deal programs left off. In foreign policy, Eisenhower made reducing Cold War tensions through military negotiation a main focus of his administration.

     In 1953, he made and agreement that brought peace to South Korea's border. Also that year, Eisenhower made his famous "Atoms for Peace" speech at the United Nations General Assembly. The United States and Russia had both had developed atomic bombs, and the speech use Atomic energy for peaceful ways instead as warfare. In 1955, Eisenhower met with Russian, British and French leaders at Geneva to put an end to the threat of atomic war.

     Then in 1956, Dwight was reelected for a second term as President of the United Stated of America after suffering from a heart attack. During his second term he continued to make his Atoms for Peace Program better and also dealt with the crises in Lebanon and the Suez.

     He made many more accomplishments such as creating the US Information Agency, and making Alaska and Hawaii US States. Dwight also supported to make Interstate Highways, he even signed the Civil Rights Act in 1957. Dwight was also helped sign the bill to create the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

     On January of 1961, Dwight gave a goodbye address that was televised on National TV. On his farewell address he warned about dangers of the Cold War.

     After Dwight’s Presidency he retired to a farmhouse in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania with his wife Mamie. He kept an office at Gettysburg College which he there held meetings and wrote memories. Dwight D. Eisenhower died on March 28, 1969, at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. due to a heart-related illness. A military funeral was held from him in his hometown of Abilene, Kansas.