Originally posted by Skydancer
Jackal1 I do know a bit.
That`s fair. I`d say about two bits worth.
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Dwight D. Eisenhower
DWIGHT DAVID EISENHOWER, 1890-1969), American general and 34th president of the United States. He was the principal architect of the successful Allied invasion of Europe during WORLD WAR II and of the subsequent defeat of Nazi Germany. As president, Eisenhower ended the Korean War, but his two terms (1953-1961) produced few legislative landmarks or dramatic initiatives in foreign policy. His presidency is remembered as a period of relative calm in the United States.
Eisenhower spent his first 50 years in almost total obscurity. A professional soldier, he was not even particularly well known within the U.S. Army. His rise to fame during World War II was meteoric: a lieutenant colonel in 1941, he was a five-star general in 1945. As supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, he commanded the most powerful force ever assembled under one man. He is one of the few generals ever to command major naval forces; he directed the world's greatest air force; he is the only man ever to command successfully an integrated, multinational alliance of ground, sea, and air forces. He led the assault on the French coast at Normandy, on June 6, 1944, and held together the Allied units through the European campaign that followed, concentrating everyone's attention on a single objective: the defeat of Nazi Germany, completed on May 8, 1945.
In 1950, President Harry TRUMAN appointed Eisenhower the supreme commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces, thus making Eisenhower the first man to command a large, peacetime multinational force. His genius lay in getting people of diverse background to work together toward a common objective, but he was equally skillful as a strategist and administrator