My New Old Hero: Dwight D. Eisenhower

This is a repost of an excerpt I posted to my Facebook page a while back, but in light of our current situation, I felt it would be prudent to re-post it here. Please forgive my repetition repetition.

As the poet and philosopher George Santayana once said:
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

"As we peer into society's future, we - you and I, and our government - must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convienience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assests of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heriatage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tommorrow.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becomming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmement, with mutual honor and confidence, is a contining imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose...

We pray that people of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to dissappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love."

- General Dwight David Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States (1953-1961); Supreme Commander of Allied Troops during D-Day (1944); Leader of U.S. Victory over Hitler and led more than a million men into battle.

If only the Republican Party of today were as forward thinking as this new old hero of mine...














Some recommended reading........well worth $2.30