“He that conquereth his own soul is greater
than he who taketh a city.”
His
name—Eisenhower—means “hewer of steel” in German. As a general in World War II,
Dwight Eisenhower ultimately served as Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied
Expeditionary Force in Europe, overseeing the destruction of Nazi Germany.
Shortly World War II ended, one of his military aides described him as “the
conqueror of the conqueror of worlds.”
Behind this future president’s beaming smile
lay the character of a supremely disciplined and brave leader. Yet here was a
man who never showed courage in battle. In fact, he was never in a battle. No
one ever took a shot at him, and he never fired a gun at anyone. Eisenhower’s
courage came in the form of the conquest of his own soul. He forged a will of
steel.
He
wasn’t always that way. When he was nine and his parents wouldn’t allow him to
go trick-or-treating with his two older brothers, he flew into a rage. He
stormed into the backyard and hammered his fists against a tree until his hands
bled.
Later, his mother Ida, a pacifist, soothed him,
saying “He that conquereth his own soul is greater than he who taketh a city.”
(She was paraphrasing Proverbs 16:32--“Better a patient person than a warrior,
one with self-control than one who takes a city.”)
Years
later, Eisenhower would recall, “I have always looked back on that conversation
as one of the most valuable moments of my life.” He came to believe that “anger
cannot win. It cannot even think clearly."
Eisenhower
grew up with outdoor plumbing, one of five sons in a tiny house in Abilene,
Kansas. His father was a mechanic in a creamery. “I have found out in later years
we were very poor,” Eisenhower recalled. “But the glory of America is that we
didn’t know it then. All that we knew was that our parents—of great
courage—could say to us: ‘Opportunity is all about you. Reach out and take it.’”
Sneak
Out the Books
He
wasn’t above defying his mother—if slyly—to get that opportunity. As a child,
he was a bookworm. Ida had to lock his books in the closet to get him to do his
chores.
These
were no picture books. They were about Roman and Greek history and contained
detailed description of great battles.
Eisenhower
found the key his mother had tucked away and stole it. “Whenever Mother went to
town to shop or was out working in her flower garden I would sneak out the
books,” he said.
As
a politician, he enjoyed calling himself just “a simple country boy.” One of
his heroes—aside from Washington and Lincoln—was Themistocles, a general who used
cunning and deceit to lure his enemies into thinking he was weak and unprepared.
When
Eisenhower started high school, he had the opportunity to get bloodied. He took
the challenge of becoming his school’s designated warrior. The tradition in
Abilene was that every year a freshman boy from the school on the south side of
town would fight a boy from the school on the north side of town.
Their
brawl lasted more than an hour. Witnesses said it was the “toughest kid fight”
anyone had ever seen. Eisenhower’s brother Arthur said he came home “beaten to
a pulp. But never licked.”
That same school year,
Eisenhower had to show courage in another way—by standing up to two doctors. He
scraped his knee, but his leg became infected. He went into coma, yet he heard
the physicians telling his parents the leg would have to come off, if he were
to live.
“You are never going to cut that leg off,” he
told them and his parents. He had a brother stand guard over his bed to ensure
his vow was honored. After two weeks, the infection abated, and after two
months of rest, he was back at school.
He
became an outstanding football player in high school. When another team showed
up with a black player, his teammates wanted to cancel the game. Eisenhower
would have none of it. He shook the boy’s hand before the game, and he switched
positions from offensive end to center (the only time he ever did that), so
that he could be opposite the black player, and when the game was over, he
shook his hand.
Eisenhower faced great
challenges to his self-control after graduating from West Point. After graduation, he wanted to fight in World
War I. Instead the Army gave him orders to report to Ft. Leavenworth where he oversaw
training of soldiers.
Finally, he became part of a tank battalion
headed for Europe. At the last minute, however, his orders were changed, because
of his “organizational abilities.” Uncle Sam sent him to a ramshackle post at
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to train tank crews.
Then
once again, he received orders to go to the front. The war, however, ended
three days later.
Eisenhower’s frustration was incredible. “I
suppose we’ll spend the rest of our lives explaining why we didn’t get into
this war,” he said, and he vowed, “By God, from now on I am cutting myself such
a swath and will make up for this.”
Carving
that path would prove horribly slow. Eisenhower stayed in the service, even
though opportunities for advancement were greatly diminished after the war. Due
to the demobilization, he was demoted from colonel to major, and he remained at
that rank for 16 years.
He
had to accept demeaning duty as a football coach at not one but two different
posts.
The
Army chastised him for writing a scholarly article on tank warfare. It
predicted that in the future tanks must be “speedy, reliable, and efficient
engine[s] of destruction.” Instead of being praised for his foresight, his
superiors told him his views were “incompatible with solid infantry doctrine.”
Worse, he learned that he would be court martialed if he persisted in his “wrong”
and “dangerous” ideas.
Slowly, senior officers saw
what a gem he was. He was sent to Command & General Staff school—a plum
assignment for future leaders. Out of 275 officers, he scored at the top of his
class. He had duty in Europe under General Pershing, the leader of America’s
forces in World War I. While there, he wrote a guide to American battlefields
in Europe, an experience which gave him first-hand knowledge of the continent’s
terrain and recent military strategy.
In
1929 just as the economy was collapsing, the Army put him in charge of a
three-year study on how American industry might be mobilized in the event of
war. He spent those years visiting factories and meeting with senior
executives, experiences which prepared him for leadership.
"Magnificent
Effort"
The
Army chief of staff called his resulting report a “magnificent effort,” and
General MacArthur wrote that “this officer has no superior of his time in the
army, distinguished by force, judgment and willingness to accept
responsibility.”
Progress
for Eisenhower remained slow, yet he showed courage by simply doing his duty
and biding his time. He spent years in the Philippines working as MacArthur’s
aide. He loathed MacArthur’s vainglorious, preening style, and he kept those
views to himself.
When
World War II started, instead of being given a field command, General Marshall,
the Army’s Chief of Staff, ordered him to Washington to serve as right-hand in
the War Plans Division of the General Staff. Still Eisenhower chafed. “My God,
how I hate this work by any method that forces me to depend on someone else,”
he said.
Patience
paid off. By working for Marshall every day for six months, Marshall saw
firsthand all of Eisenhower’s talents—his aggressive combat instincts, his
diplomatic finesse, his intelligence, his tolerance of stress, and his capacity
for hard work.
In
March 1942, he got his field command as Commanding General, European Theatre of
Operations. The long years of staff duty proved he had the necessary character,
demeanor, and experience for such responsibility.
He
had a backbone of steel. When “pressure mounts and strain increases, everyone
begins to show his weaknesses in his makeup,” Eisenhower wrote.” It is up to
the Commander to conceal his; above all to conceal doubt, fear, and distrust.”
As
president, he faced down the Soviet Union for eight long tense years during the
Cold War. If that’s not courage, consider how Eisenhower quit smoking. He was a
four-pack-a-day man--smoking unfiltered cigarettes. He quit cold turkey in
1949, and he never picked up a cigarette again.
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