John Eisenhower, Military Historian and Son of the President

A Peninsula Library patron, with who I have developed a friendship, in part based on a shared interest in history, told me about JSE's passing (I'd already seen the item). Then he mentioned that John graduated from West Point on 4 June 1944 — D-Day, the day his father sent Allied troops to invade Europe, to land in Normandy in the beginning of the campaign to dislodge the Nazis.

Leslie Priest/Associated Press — John Eisenhower and Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower visiting Culzean Castle in Scotland in 1946.

 Mr. Eisenhower was an Army officer in World War II and the Korean War and a national security adviser during his father’s presidency, but at that point he was still viewed primarily as the son of Ike, the American hero. 

National security adviser; fascinating.

John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower was born in Denver while his father was stationed at an Army post in Panama. As a child, he toured World War I battle sites with his father, who was writing an Army guidebook to them. He attended high school in the Philippines during his father’s tour there and followed his path by entering West Point in July 1941.

But, as he recalled in his memoir, “I was not only his son; I was a young lieutenant who needed on occasion to be straightened out.” At one point, he wrote, “I asked him in all earnestness: ‘If we should meet an officer who ranks above me but below you, how do we handle this? Should I salute first and when they return my salute, do you return theirs?’ “Dad’s annoyed reaction was short. ‘John, there isn’t an officer in this theater who doesn’t rank above you and below me.’ ”