Prairie Girls

Alexis

This is Alexis, and I am happy today. The war is over! Germany surrendered in June, and now the Japanese have surrendered. America and its allies won. Mom says her cousin will surely be released soon, and we will have a big family gathering when he comes home. I am saddened when I think of the soldiers who died in the war. While my family will celebrate Mom’s cousin’s homecoming, my heart will ache for those families whose boys died. I hope there is never another war.

 

General Eisenhower

                                            by Collette

General Eisenhower was not my dad’s favorite general during WWII. He favored General Omar Bradley and was apprehensive of General George Patton. He often referred to Ike with disdain as a “desk general.” I didn’t really know what that meant except that maybe he was behind the lines and not actually in the fighting. I never asked my dad why he felt that way.

Part of the grant I participated in for my masters allowed me to do research at Eisenhower’s museum and library in Abilene. I was lucky to have one of the oldest members of the museum as my archivist. My research paper one summer was about Eisenhower’s role in WWII. The archivist brought me the letter from FDR naming Ike the Commander of the American forces in Europe. It was sent to him by George Marshall who was Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army. I was awe stricken to hold that letter.

The archivist sent me to the Dickerson County Library where I researched the early life of General Eisenhower. I looked at his report cards and was stunned by comments about how great his math skills were. He was truly gifted mathematically. It was with further research, I discovered why he had been chosen to lead the armies in Europe.

It was precisely because of those math skills that he was perfect to develop the invasion plan that would be called Operation Overlord. Only someone with keen skills could oversee thousands of men, millions of pieces of equipment, and hundreds of ships and planes to be brought in secretly to the coast of France. He even participated in estimating where the most horrific losses would occur, and he was more correct than wrong in determining how many men would be lost.

Historians now know that much of the D-Day planning was Ike’s doing. The “desk general” was an expert with numbers, placating generals with difficult personalities, and assuming the huge responsibility of leading the allies to victory during WWII. I do not share my father’s opinion about Ike.