How Gettysburg Influenced D-Day Through Eisenhower

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infinite icon.com to pre save my album, sponsored by 1111 Media. And we return to our American stories. Up next, a story about Gettysburg, but not about the battle that happened there in the 19th century, but how what happened there impacted General Dwight D Eisenhower in the 20th, as our troops stormed the beaches of Normandy. Here to tell the story of how Gettysburg impacted Ike is National Park Service Ranger Dan Vermelea. Take it away, Dan. When Eisenhower was young, his mom had to hide his history books to get him to do his chores. Sounds like all of us here, right?

If I've heard it once, I've heard it 1000 times. But growing up in Abilene, Kansas, in the 1890s, and early 1900s, he's interacting with Civil War veterans, they're still around, they're still on the scene, he's hearing stories from them. And he would also note that he thought it was utterly strange that he would go on to live in a place like Gettysburg, having spent so much of his early life talking with Civil War veterans in his hometown of Abilene. But what got him from I like to read history just because I like to read about it to, oh, history shapes the world we live in and it shapes us. Gettysburg is what got him there.

And his trips here. His first trip to Gettysburg, 1915. The West Point class of 1915, the class the stars fell on, more members of that class reaching the rank of general than any other. He came here with his West Point class to do a staff ride, something that still happens every year here at Gettysburg. Three years later, Eisenhower's back, commanding Camp Colt, the tank training camp. It wasn't the assignment he wanted. He wanted to be with his fellow West Point classmates, his fellow army officers going to France, getting combat experience in the Great War.

Nobody knew it as the First World War at the time, the Great War. But instead he's here in Gettysburg. He faced a lot of challenges, not having tanks to train with for several months for a tank training camp.

That's problematic. Spanish influenza hitting the camp in the fall of 1918. He's facing challenges. One of the things he did was he went to the National Cemetery, went to as close as he could guess where Lincoln's speech was given.

And then he read the speech to himself as a way of drawing inspiration for the problems he was facing. We're going to fast forward now a couple decades to 1946. Eisenhower is one of the most admired and respected men in the world at this point. He is the victorious Supreme Allied Commander. 1946, his name is up there.

It's recognized all around the world. And May 27th, he comes back to Gettysburg to deliver a commencement address at Gettysburg College. It's one of my favorite Eisenhower speeches.

I won't read the whole thing, but just a couple quotes for you here. No American can come to Gettysburg unstirred by the memory of those who fought and of him who spoke here many years ago. We are intensely proud of America's history, but questionable it is that we explore that history sufficiently for the inspiration and example it could furnish toward the conquest of current problems.

Essentially saying, it's questionable whether we're properly exploring the past to inform our present. You here have been fortunate to live closely with the traditions of Lincoln and Gettysburg. And then saying of Lincoln, to few is given the extraordinary combination of qualities to carry the heavy burden that Lincoln bore.

Fortunately, few were called upon to meet the tests he met. But basic to his genius for leadership was a willing acceptance of responsibility and a firm will to render honest service. I love that quote because in describing Lincoln, Eisenhower is also in a sense describing himself. Maybe he doesn't know that, but I'd say that quote would apply equally to Eisenhower.

So he's seeing the connections between the past and the present. His speech at Gettysburg College is strongly telling us that the past has lessons for us in the present. He's applying those lessons in his time out on the battlefield. In the 1950s and 1960s, if you were touring the Gettysburg battlefield, you may have run in to the former Supreme Allied Commander and depending on what time, sitting incumbent President of the United States. Eisenhower used his Gettysburg farm as a setting for diplomacy, for bringing guests to meet them, have discussions. The battlefield was a place for him to engage with and contemplate. As he wrote about Gettysburg in his memoir At Ease, Gettysburg in fact was a demonstration of what a tiny portion of what a nation's number can accomplish in the shaping and making of history. And when he's leading tours, he's using the lessons of the past to inform the diplomacy he's engaging in as president. Can we see any of that in his leadership on D-Day?

I think we can. On June 6th of 1944, Eisenhower was calm under pressure. Specifically on June 4th and 5th of 1944, he was calm under pressure. Because after he gives the go-ahead order to move forward with the invasion on the morning of June 5th, kind of out of his hands, Eisenhower went from having the most important, most powerful decision in the world to make to, okay, everybody's going, they're implementing that order.

And what I'm referring to is the delay of the invasion by a day due to weather. But in those discussions, in those meetings about whether to delay the invasion, Eisenhower did not engage in histrionics. He did not engage in dramatics.

He was cool, calm, and calculated. Not unlike George Gordon Meade, a man he looked up to. Eisenhower wrote of Meade, his claim to greatness in that moment of assuming command of the Army of the Potomac on the eve of Gettysburg may very well be evidenced by the total absence of the theatrical.

When thousands of lives were at stake, there was no time for postures or declamations. How else did Gettysburg shape Eisenhower? August 8th of 1863, after this battle, Confederate Commander Robert E. Lee wrote to Jefferson Davis in Richmond offering his resignation, noting no one is more aware of myself than myself of my inability for the duties of my position.

I cannot even accomplish what I myself desire. Lee was taking personal responsibility and accountability for the failure at Gettysburg. Obviously, Davis did not accept the resignation. But is there a parallel with Eisenhower?

I'd say so. On the eve of the invasion, Eisenhower wrote this note, and in case of failure messages, it's frequently and commonly referred to as, so that if the invasion would fail, if something went wrong, if any blame or fault attaches to the attempt as he ended the note, it is mine alone. Now, the note actually is dated July 5th. He wrote it on June 5th, as he would say numerous times.

It fell out of his wallet a couple weeks after the invasion and was found. But it showed a belief that accountability and character matter. And how else did Gettysburg inspire his leadership? Eisenhower modeled himself after many leaders, but none more so than Abraham Lincoln. He referred to Lincoln as his ideal leader on numerous occasions. Said Lincoln never slapped a table or assumed the stance of a pseudo-dictator.

He was calm under pressure. He talked to others. Eisenhower aspired to those same qualities. But Lincoln also was an inspirational leader. And he inspired others not just with flowing language and words, but by speaking clearly about the mission.

Speaking clearly about what was at stake. His first inaugural, the second inaugural, great examples of this. But no example is greater than the Gettysburg Address, where Lincoln comes here to this war-torn town. He's surrounded by death everywhere he looks. When he tours the battlefield that morning, he's seeing still freshly dug graves. He's seeing a war-torn landscape. And then he goes and he delivers the speech talking about we have to continue this because the future of democracy is at stake. Is there a parallel with Eisenhower?

I would certainly say so. His order of the day, given to the soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force, handed out with paper copies, read aloud over loudspeakers on ships before men embarked into their landing craft to head towards the shores of Normandy. You are about to embark on the great crusade towards which we have striven these many months.

The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. Saying that their task is to bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves and a free world.

No small task. But he drew these lessons and in crafting this, inspired others to work towards what he called the great crusade in that message. And we might say that Eisenhower began shaping the memory of D-Day on D-Day by referring to it as the great crusade. He is telling those under his command that they are involved in something that has almost religious tones to it. The word crusade is often associated with that.

A righteous tone to what they're doing. As he would later write, belief in an underlying cause is fully as important to success in a war as any local spirit or discipline. This was the good war.

This was the good conflict. It's easier for us to understand World War II perhaps than the First World War because the causes are much more clear in many of our minds in part because it has this righteous undertones from documents like the order of the day. Eisenhower approached D-Day for the rest of his life with great reverence for what it meant for America's place in the world and he also approached it with great humility for his own role in the success. And we might say that Eisenhower's great crusade, what was it?

It depended on when you're talking about in his life. On June 6th of 1944, the great crusade is establishing a foothold in Western Europe so that Allied arms could sweep across the continent and defeat Nazi tyranny. May 8th of 1945, the great crusade then became taking the lessons of that sweep across Europe and applying them to the world going forward. History was many things for Eisenhower but it was a lesson that drove his actions. And I think as we conclude it might be fitting once again to look to both Eisenhower and Lincoln. As Ike himself once said of Lincoln, we have not paid to his message its just tribute until we ourselves live it. The question is how do we pay our just tribute to Eisenhower's message? What a story, what a connection, the reason we tell these stories in the end connecting the past to the present. Ike to Gettysburg, Ike to Lincoln himself.

The story of the Eisenhower Gettysburg connection here on Our American Stories. I feel so lucky to collaborate with Megan and how perfectly she put my experience into words. Listen to Chasen from my new album Infinite Icon on iHeartRadio or wherever you stream music. Don't forget to visit InfiniteIcon.com to pre-save my album. Sponsored by 1111 Media.

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