Sublime

That Eisenhower survived the twelve-hour hiatus between the initial attack and the first accurate diagnosis was a testament to his remarkable constitution. At sixty-four, Ike weighed 172 pounds, only seven pounds more than when he graduated from West Point. His blood pressure was a reasonable 140/80 and his pulse averaged sixty beats per minute. He

To begin lifting French morale, Pershing ordered his staff officers to display a sense of optimism at all times; a positive attitude became “a matter of duty,” as Conner put it.

“We have a plan, Jake. I promise you. Remember, these are Germans. They’re arrogant people. They’re going to come at us straight-on sometime today—straight up the ladder we left for them, feeling safe in their near certainty that we don’t have any weapons that can really hurt them—and then we’re going to kill as many of them as we can. Only then wi

Fifteen months earlier Ike had been tromping across overgrown battlefields in France, far from the military mainstream. Now he was at the center of the Army’s command structure.

Ike’s optimism was contagious. He recognized that a few compelling ideas, preached relentlessly, would propel his forces forward.

Above all, it was in North Africa that Eisenhower made the transition from staff officer to senior commander.

His rise had been meteoric. In little more than ten weeks, dating from his promotion from brigadier to major general, Ike had moved ahead of 228 general officers with greater seniority.

Ike’s unusual ability to think like his superiors paid dividends.