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Little ray
of sunshine
Picture of jhe888
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The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything.
 
Posts: 53414 | Location: Texas | Registered: February 10, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Lawyers, Guns
and Money
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^^^ Eisenhower's Letter is a great one!

Perhaps even greater... he wrote another one that went unused, accepting full responsibility in the event of failure.

Dwight Eisenhower Wrote a Letter Accepting Blame for D-Day's Failure, Just in Case

June 5, 2019

General Dwight D. Eisenhower sounded confident before the Normandy Invasion. “This operation is planned as a victory, and that’s the way it’s going to be. We’re going down there, and we’re throwing everything we have into it, and we’re going to make it a success,” he said.

Operation Overlord was a massive campaign—an invasion of 4000 ships, 11,000 planes, and nearly 3 million men—that was launched on June 6, 1944. Despite a year of strategizing and a boatload of confidence, Eisenhower had a quiet plan in case his mission failed. If the armada couldn’t cross the English Channel, he’d order a full retreat. One day before the invasion, he prepared a brief statement—just in case:

"Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."

Although the allies suffered about 12,000 casualties—with an estimated 4900 U.S. troops killed—155,000 successfully made it ashore, with thousands more on the way. Within a year, Germany would surrender.

Here's the actual note, which is erroneously dated July 5:



http://mentalfloss.com/article...ys-failure-just-case



"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible."
-- Justice Janice Rogers Brown

"The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth."
-rduckwor
 
Posts: 24881 | Location: St. Louis, MO | Registered: April 03, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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What a great Generation. Has to be the best in the history of mankind. Think of the magnitude of the mission they were about to embark on. Amazing people. I am truly impressed and humbled.
 
Posts: 5820 | Location: Chicago | Registered: August 18, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Lots of reliance upon exclamation points. Good letter, and clearly written by Eisenhower himself. Not the wordsmith like Churchill.
 
Posts: 17707 | Location: Stuck at home | Registered: January 02, 2015Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Sadly, this type of leadership has been a lost skill for most of our recent political leaders.
 
Posts: 5906 | Location: Denver, CO | Registered: September 16, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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