Ike was no quitter
Watching a McCain surrogate this morning, he was all over Biden for his ‘Roosevelt on tv’ remark – ‘Biden doesn’t even know that tvs were not yet invented, lol’ was the gist of it.
Here’s a tidbit from factcheck regarding a statement from McCain the other night:
McCain mangled his military history:
McCain: President Eisenhower, on the night before the Normandy invasion, went into his room, and he wrote out two letters.
One of them was a letter congratulating the great members of the military and allies that had conducted and succeeded in the greatest invasion in history, still to this day, and forever.
And he wrote out another letter, and that was a letter of resignation from the United States Army for the failure of the landings at Normandy.
The story is widely circulated in military circles but not entirely true. Eisenhower (then a general, not yet a president) did in fact write a letter taking responsibility should the D-Day invasion fail. But Eisenhower’s letter does not mention resigning. Here’s the full text:
Eisenhower (June 5, 1944): Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops.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.
No mention of quitting the Army, or his command.
Tags: debate, factcheck.org, mccain, Politics