by Larry H. Maxey, founder, NAILE Fullblood Simmental Shows
Our Pioneers — “Ike” Part 2
“The proudest thing I can claim is that I am from Abilene.”
At the conclusion of the February Fleckvieh Forum, in September 1910, Eisenhower was at a critical crossroads in his young life. He had befriended Everett “Swede” Hazlett, a son of one of the town’s physicians. Hazlett had gone to a military school in Wisconsin. That led to an appointment at the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Failing grades there forced his return to Abilene to study for further exams the following June. He and Eisenhower became close friends and remained so for the rest of their lives. Hazlett was convinced that the Naval Academy was where Eisenhower should pursue his education. His plans were to save enough to go to the University of Michigan and play football and baseball in the fall of 1911. Eisenhower gave serious thought to the prospects painted by Swede’s urging.
As fate would have it, Eisenhower read an announcement in the local paper of a competitive examination for applicants for service academies. He took the exam and scored second among the eight candidates. With those results, he was offered an appointment to West Point. To Hazlett’s dismay, he accepted and was thoroughly delighted. It would be the Army, not the Navy, that would shape the future military genius he would become.
Stephen E. Ambrose, author of Eisenhower, Soldier and President, described his departure from Abilene as follows: “Ida did not want her boy to become a soldier, but she held back tears until he boarded the train headed east. David, typically, showed no emotion whatsoever. As he swung onto the train, Ike made a striking picture. He had filled out in the past two years, putting on 20 pounds, none of which was fat. At nearly six feet tall, now weighing 170 pounds, with strong broad shoulders and rock-hard muscles, he was the embodiment of an athlete. He was rawboned, with big hands. He walked on the balls of his feet and carried himself gracefully, as good athletes do.”
Eisenhower had great energy. His power of concentration was always directed at self-improvement and making things better. He was extremely confident and self-assured. He had no doubts about his abilities. There was no “self-searching” or identity crisis so often associated with young men. “Eisenhower knew who he was and where he was going.”
West Point regarded its long history with veneration with the objective of instilling that concept in their recruits. Eisenhower, already possessing a strong sense of military history, responded enthusiastically. He took from West Point what was positive and rejected that which was negative. His studies were focused mainly on civil and military engineering. Mathematics was a critical part of his studies and one in which he was well adept.
Being an athlete, sports were at the center of his life and interest. He said he “had a lack of motivation in almost everything other than athletics, except for the simple and stark resolve to get a college education.” In 1911, he played on the junior varsity football team. In the spring of 1912, he played baseball and future general Omar Bradley was a teammate. By the fall of 1912, he was selected for the varsity football squad. The first two games of the season were wins for Army and Ike was so outstanding as a running back that The New York Times described him as “one of the most promising backs in Eastern Football.” In a victory over Colgate, the West Point yearbook reported that “Eisenhower in the fourth quarter could not be stopped.”
Once again, fate intervened. In a game against Tufts, Eisenhower twisted his knee. The damage at first didn’t seem too serious. The following week, while participating in the “monkey drill” and leaping off and remounting a galloping horse, the knee crumbled when he hit the ground. The injury was so serious that his football-playing days were over. A period of depression set in where he considered resigning from the Academy. His friends were able to talk him out of it. Ike said, “life seemed to have little meaning. A need to excel was almost gone.”
His enthusiasm for football was so intense and matched by his study of the intricacies of the game that his coach suggested he coach junior varsity. Thus, a new beginning for Ike had surfaced. With gusto he thrust himself into this new phase of his life, and success followed. His ingrained competitiveness, leadership, and organizational abilities, combined with enthusiasm and optimism, were key. He was a “natural” at coaching. Decades later, during World War II, many compared his techniques as a general with those of a good coach.
Eisenhower graduated from West Point in June 1915. He was now a Second Lieutenant. Various assignments followed with his first at Fort Sam Houston. There he met and fell in love with Mary Geneva Doud, better known as Mamie. They married on July 1, 1916. Mamie was six years his junior and their marriage would last the rest of their lives. She knew and willingly accepted the life of a military couple and never complained. In the first 35 years of their marriage, they moved 35 times. It wasn’t until 1953 that they had a home they could call their own.
While World War I had been raging since July 28, 1914, the US was not a party. Eisenhower’s peacetime duties were mundane. Then on April 6, 1917, the US entered the War. Although highly qualified, now-Captain Eisenhower stayed behind. The Army needed his skills at training thousands of soldiers in various disciplines. Multiple times, he was on orders to go to Europe and each time those orders were rescinded. His duty would remain stateside, and a very unhappy Eisenhower grew depressed. On November 11, 1918, Germany signed the Armistice. The War was over and he had not entered the battle. He said, “I suppose we’ll spend the rest of our lives explaining why we didn’t get into the war,” and, “from now on I am going to be cutting myself a swath and will make up for this.” He could never have imagined how prophetic that pledge would be or that an ever-greater war was just two decades away, one in which he would be of paramount importance in defeating the evil that had spawned it. To be continued.
