After the Battle. By David Remick. On June 12, 1945, a month after V-E Day, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, Dwight D. Eisenhower, received an ancient honor, the "freedom" of the City of London. In his address that day, at Guildhall, General Eisenhower said:
Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in blood of his followers and sacrifices of his friends. Conceivably a commander may have been professionally superior. He may have given everything of his heart and mind to meet the spiritual and physical needs of his comrades. He may have written a chapter that will glow forever in the pages of military history. Still, even such a man - if he existed - would sadly face the fact that his honors cannot hide in his memories the crosses marking the resting places of the dead. They cannot soothe the anguish of the widow or the orphan whose husband or father will not return. The only attitude in which a commander may with satisfaction receive the tributes of his friends is in the humble acknowledgment that no matter how unworthy he may be, his position is the symbol of great human forces that have labored arduously and successfully for a righteous cause. Humility is what Eisenhower mentioned before all else - before pride in his honors, before joy in the Allied victory. And humility is a quality that has been absent from the diplomacy of George W. Bush. It is, however, a quality that will be indispensable in victory if we are to help rebuild Iraq after decades of tyrannical rule and to repair our own frayed relations with governments, peoples, and institutions around the world. [ The New Yorker ]
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