Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight David Eisenhower was born on October 14, 1890. He was one of seven boys born to David and Ida Eisenhower. His father was co-owner of a general store in Kansas . The family moved to Denison, Texas , where Dwight was born. There, David worked for the railroad, earning $40 a month.

The family returned to Abilene, Kansas, where David worked at a creamery. The Eisenhower boys attended public school and took jobs in their free time to help the family survive. Always living in poverty, they were teased at school for the way they dressed. Dwight (nicknamed “Ike”) gained a reputation as a good fighter.

Eisenhower played football and baseball in high school, where he maintained average or better grades. Along with his brother Edgar, Eisenhower wanted to attend college. There was no money for such a dream, so the two brothers took turns working for one year, attending school the next. Edgar went to school first, which left Eisenhower working eighty-four-hour work weeks at the creamery.

Goes to West Point

During this time, Eisenhower had a friend who encouraged him to take the examinations required to get into West Point military academy and the naval academy at Annapolis, Maryland . Knowing his parents were opposed to war but needing the money desperately, Eisenhower took the examinations and passed both. In 1911, he enrolled in West Point, where he again played football until an injury ended his career. Without the game, Eisenhower lost interest in West Point. His grades suffered, and his final years were marked with demerits (marks for poor discipline). He graduated in 1915 sixty-first out of 168 students.

After graduation, Eisenhower was sent to Fort Sam Houston in Texas. There he met Mamie Doud, and the two were married in 1916. They had two sons, Doud and John. Doud died at age three, and John went on to graduate from West Point and pursue a military career.

Eisenhower had been promoted to the rank of captain by 1917, when his country was on the brink of joining World War I (1914–18). He spent the war at Camp Colt in Pennsylvania , where he trained infantry soldiers. After the war, he was promoted to major and sent back to school to learn about tank warfare. In 1922, he was sent to Central America to serve under General Fox Conner (1874–1951), a dedicated military officer.

Conner and Eisenhower formed a lasting friendship, and Conner secured for the major a job at Leavenworth, the staff training school. Under Conner's tutelage, Eisenhower became more serious about his military career. At Leavenworth, he finished first in a class of 215. In 1933, he became an aide to Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964), the chief of staff of the army and a key military figure in World War II (1939–45).

Excels in the military

Eisenhower gained a reputation as an excellent military planner. In 1942, he was assigned a task that shaped his future: Plan a war to defeat Germany and Japan. Now a brigadier general, Eisenhower planned the major attacks of World War II: Germany, Africa, Sicily, Italy, and Normandy. By the end of the war, he had commanded three million soldiers, airmen, and sailors.

It was Eisenhower who brought the horrors of Nazi concentration camps into the international spotlight. To ensure that German civilians knew what had happened during the Holocaust (the systematic genocide of European Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Catholics, and other groups by Nazi Germany in World War II), Eisenhower required the residents of a town near the concentration camp at Ohrdurf to clean up the camp, which was littered with human bones.

Eisenhower returned home a hero and became chief of staff of the U.S. Army. He retired from active duty in 1948 to become president of Columbia University. Two years later, he became supreme commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces.

Becomes president

Eisenhower was elected president of the United States in 1952. He took over the presidency while the United States was involved in the Korean War (1950–53), but in 1953 he helped negotiate peace along the South Korean border. A heart attack in 1955 slowed him down somewhat, but the popular president was reelected in 1956. His supporters proudly wore “I Like Ike!” buttons.

Eisenhower's second term in office was marked by the president's commitment to the civil rights movement , as he sent troops to Little Rock, Arkansas , to force the desegregation (mixing of African American and white students) of southern public schools in 1957. (See also Little Rock Central High School Desegregation and Desegregation of Public Schools .) Eisenhower ordered the desegregation

of the armed forces as well. The president's efforts toward international peace did not falter in his second term; he worked with other nations to help prevent the onset of war.

Eisenhower left office in 1961 but continued to speak about public issues, especially those involving military spending. He encouraged the maintenance of military strength but warned the public about the dangers of high, continuous military expenditures.

Eisenhower died on March 28, 1969, at the age of seventy-eight. In the twenty-first century, he remains one of the most popular American presidents.