President s Paper

Submitted By laurenrhoades98
Words: 1403
Pages: 6

I think President Eisenhower was a great President. He was a very good administrator and had a strong foreign and domestic policy. He was in the military before which made him familiar with the military operations and organization. Eisenhower valued the people he was given charge of. This recognition of an individual’s value is something that has become largely unrecognizable under the current generation of political leaders.

Dwight David Eisenhower was born was on October 10, 1890 in Denison, Texas to David Jacob Eisenhower and Ida Elizabeth Stover Eisenhower. Eisenhower’s parents moved from Abilene, Kansas to Denison, Texas before he was born. When he was a year and a half years old they moved back to Abilene so his Dad could take a better job. Eisenhower was the third of seven sons.

After Eisenhower graduated from Abilene High School in 1909, he joined his father and uncle at the Bell Springs Creamery working as a fireman. In 1911, Dwight landed an appointment at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. In 1915, Eisenhower graduated from West Point at the top of his class, and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant.

After graduation, Eisenhower was stationed in Texas, where he met and started dating 18-year-old Mamie Geneva Doud. Mamie Doud was from Denver, Colorado. The couple married nine months later, July 1, 1916. The same day , his wedding day, he was promoted to First Lieutenant. For the first couple of years of Eisenhower’s military career they moved from post to post throughout Texas, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. In 1917, Mamie gave birth to their first son, Doud Dwight. That same year, the United States entered WWI.

Eisenhower was appointed to run a tank-training center at Camp Colt in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Throughout the war and after, Eisenhower continued to rise through the ranks. He volunteered for the Tanks Corps, in the War Department’s first transcontinental motor convey in 1919. A year later, Eisenhower was promoted to Major.

In 1921 Eisenhower’s firstborn son Doud Dwight died of scarlet fever at the age of 3. Mamie gave birth to a second son, John Sheldon Doud, in 1922. That year Eisenhower assumed the role of executive officer to General Fox Connor in the Panama Canal Zone. In 1924, at Connor’s urging, Eisenhower applied to and was accepted to the Army’s prestigious graduate school, The Command and General Staff School, located at Ft. Leavenworth. He graduated first in his class in 1926 with a firm reputation for his military valor. From 1927 to 1929 Eisenhower toured and reported for the War Department, under General John Pershing. After finishing his tour in 1929, Eisenhower was appointed chief military aide under General Douglas MacArthur.

From 1935 to 1939 Eisenhower served under MacArthur as assistant military advisor to the Philippines. Eisenhower returned to the United States in early 1940. Over the next two years he was stationed in California and Washington State. In 1941, after a transfer to Fort San Houston, Eisenhower became a chief of staff for the Third Army. Eisenhower was soon 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 promoted to Major General. Just months later, he became Commander-in-Chief of the Allied forces and led Operation Torch which was the Allied Invasion of North Africa. By D-Day, Eisenhower had reached the rank of five-star. Upon Germany’s surrender in 1945, he was made military governor of the U.S. Occupied Zone. Eisenhower then returned home to Abilene. A few months later, he was appointed U.S. Army Chief of Staff. In 1947, he was elected president of Columbia University. He held this position until December of 1950. In 1951, Eisenhower decided to leave Columbia to assume an appointment as First Supreme Allied Commander of the North Atlantic