American Valor Quarterly Issue 8 - Winter 2010/2011 | Page 19

Eisenhower and Butcher had joked about what language the he said he had read a poem that summed up his attitude about
supreme commander would use to inform the Combined Chiefs indispensability. He reached into his wallet for the clipping and
when the day finally came that Germany surrendered; homilies read it aloud. It ended this way:
such as, “We have met the enemy and they is ours.” As a soldier,
Eisenhower understood that it was not his place to announce the
The moral of this quaint example is to do just the
end of the war in Europe, but a function of the heads of state,
best that you can. Be proud of yourself, but
who would make the formal announcement the following day.
remember, there is no indispensable man.
Beetle Smith recounts that in the afterglow of the surrender I’d take issue with his last remark: if ever there was an indispensable
ceremony, “the staff prepared various drafts of a victory message man it was Dwight Eisenhower.
appropriate to the historic event. I tried
one myself and, like all my associates,
And so, tonight, it has been my great
groped for resounding phrases as
privilege to pay tribute to two great
fitting accolades to the Great Crusade
Americans:
Gen.
Andrew
. . . General Eisenhower rejected them
Goodpaster
and
Dwight
all, with thanks, but without other
Eisenhower. Throughout the more
comment, and wrote his own.”
than thirty years that I’ve toiled in the
fields of military history and
Eisenhower often wrote long-winded
biography I have been sustained by
missives, but on this occasion he
the honor of not only writing about
dispatched the briefest cable of his
great men but also of ordinary
tenure as supreme commander. It was
soldiers, sailors and airmen – the men
typical of Dwight Eisenhower that he
and women who stepped forward
would not take credit for the Allied
when their nation needed them and
Old friends as young men. Dwight D. Eisenhower at
victory. Instead his message to his
did their duty – those that the
West Point, 1915, and Andrew J. Goodpaster in his
West Point photo, 1939.
bosses - the Combined Chiefs of Staff
American Veterans Center so ably
- was utterly devoid of selfrepresents.
congratulation, and as unpretentious as the man himself. Only a
single sentence long, it read simply:
My late father likewise understood the essence of what duty and
leadership were all about. Although he – like so many other Italians
The mission of this Allied force was fulfilled at 0241 hours local who lived in the Austrian controlled city of Trieste – wanted no
time, May 7, 1945 // signed “Eisenhower”
part of World War I – he was conscripted into the Austrian
Army and given a commission. When the unit he commanded
Only Dwight Eisenhower would have taken such a humble was left to fend for itself after Russia capitulated in 1917 he
approach to one of history’s greatest moments.
brought them all home safely. His later decision to live in freedom
in the United St