Very informative and thoughtful column Steve. I haven't really done much studying about President Eisenhower, but from what you mentioned here, there seems to be a lot of wisdom in his words. I do remember my late great uncle, who emigrated to the US in the 1950s, always speaking highly of Ike. Based on what your quotes of POTUS 34, and what I've read about so far about him, I better understand why. He considered himself to be a moderate JFK Democrat, but was never a hard edged partisan and would sometimes vote Republican(Reagan, Bush 41, McCain, etc). Of all the presidential elections he voted in, he voted 8 times for the Democrat, 7 for the Republican. My great uncle was a classic American centrist voter of a bygone era, to say the least. He passed away just before Donald Trump was inaugurated in 2017. And I know that he would've hated this political environment that we are in.
I remember the military assistance we provided in Vietnam when Ike was president. It was a subject in half of my 12 ROTC classes. When the first major US military units were moved to Vietnam (about 75,000 personnel if I remember correctly), I was a US Army lieutenant running a communications center in Seattle. We received SECRET messages to distribute to various military a units in the area. When I got home that evening, I found out why the messages were so highly classified. It was so that LBJ could personally announce it to the American people on TV that night.
My mother was a serious democrat. She campaigned for LBJ because Goldwater would get us in a war. Not too long after that, she had two sons on orders for Vietnam.
Very informative and thoughtful column Steve. I haven't really done much studying about President Eisenhower, but from what you mentioned here, there seems to be a lot of wisdom in his words. I do remember my late great uncle, who emigrated to the US in the 1950s, always speaking highly of Ike. Based on what your quotes of POTUS 34, and what I've read about so far about him, I better understand why. He considered himself to be a moderate JFK Democrat, but was never a hard edged partisan and would sometimes vote Republican(Reagan, Bush 41, McCain, etc). Of all the presidential elections he voted in, he voted 8 times for the Democrat, 7 for the Republican. My great uncle was a classic American centrist voter of a bygone era, to say the least. He passed away just before Donald Trump was inaugurated in 2017. And I know that he would've hated this political environment that we are in.
I remember the military assistance we provided in Vietnam when Ike was president. It was a subject in half of my 12 ROTC classes. When the first major US military units were moved to Vietnam (about 75,000 personnel if I remember correctly), I was a US Army lieutenant running a communications center in Seattle. We received SECRET messages to distribute to various military a units in the area. When I got home that evening, I found out why the messages were so highly classified. It was so that LBJ could personally announce it to the American people on TV that night.
My mother was a serious democrat. She campaigned for LBJ because Goldwater would get us in a war. Not too long after that, she had two sons on orders for Vietnam.