Best farewell speech in my life

3 more days, folks. Just 3 more days

The old president gave one of his finest speeches days before handing over the reins to a new president. The incumbent began:

Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

The president obviously was not FJB but a far greater man—Eisenhower. When he said he served the nation for 50 years, he really did as he served in both world wars.

Eisenhower stayed in the military in between the wars when America’s military was at its lowest. He spent 16 years as a major. Only the prospect of a second war in Europe opened the door for promotion. When the war began, he was a colonel.

But the hard times he and his fellow winter soldiers faced built a corps of great generals and admirals. They knew one another. Their dedication was unquestioned. They were the teams that won the war.

Sure, American factories (remember those?) supplied the war materiel but these men formed teams of leadership that won two wars simultaneously. When George C. Marshall selected Colonel Eisenhower to head the war in Europe, he passed over plenty of good men with stars on their shoulders.

Marshall knew whoever he picked would have to deal with King George and Montgomery and de Gaulle. Eisenhower’s diplomatic skills were as important as his military experience in rescuing Europe from the Nazis.

But as incredible as that was, Victory in Europe was far from his only historic accomplishment. He gave America her interstate highway system. The story began a year after an armistice ended the Great War (which was really World War I as it turned out).

On February 20, 2018, Lee Lacy wrote:

In the summer of 1919, Lt. Col. Eisenhower was a dejected midcareer Army officer. He narrowly missed out on overseas service during World War I and anticipated a reduction in rank as the Army shrank and prepared for peacetime operations. Adding to his discontent, he was physically separated from his wife and infant child because of a shortage of military housing.

Eisenhower was assigned as an observer to an unprecedented military experiment--the First Transcontinental Motor Convoy. The operation was a road test for military vehicles and was used to identify the challenges in moving troops from coast to coast on the existing infrastructure. The excursion covered 3,200 miles from Washington D.C. to San Francisco. It included 79 vehicles of all sizes and 297 personnel.

During the expedition, Eisenhower gained some insight for the creation of a network of connected roads and bridges. Eisenhower's report to Army leaders focused mostly on mechanical difficulties and the condition of the patchwork of existing roads. He reported a mix of paved and unpaved roads, old bridges, and narrow passages.

Narrow roads caused oncoming traffic to run off the road and encounter added difficulty when reentering the roadway. Some bridges were too low for trucks to pass under. Eisenhower pointed out that the roads in the Midwest region of the United States were impracticable, but the roads in the east were sufficient for truck use.

His firsthand knowledge of the lay of the land served him and his nation well. He convinced Congress to start the interstate highway system, which among so many things allowed millions of middle-class families to escape the crime and pollution of the big cities. Democrats hated it and 60 years later began tearing up roads in the name of social justice.

Less known nationally is the St. Lawrence Seaway which made the Great Lakes open to overseas shipping. Queen Elizabeth joined Ike in opening the Eisenhower Lock in Montreal in 1959. She likely first met him when she was a teenage princess.

Eisenhower’s public service was about winning wars and making America better.

While FJB banged his gums the other night about an imaginary oligarchy, Eisenhower 64 years ago spoke of very real dangers.

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

“We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

And then there was this.

“Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

“The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

“Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

“It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system-ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.”

We heeded neither warning.

Eisenhower was part of a special breed of men that spanned two generations. A Republican, he supported his Democrat successor who had defeated Ike’s vice president for the job.

During the Cuban missile crisis, his successor called him up. Ike gave him solid advice and support.

(President Kennedy): Yeah. General, what about if the Soviet Union, uh, Khrushchev, announces tomorrow, which I think he will, that if we attack Cuba that it’s going to be nuclear war? And what's your judgment as to the chances they’ll fire these things off if we invade Cuba?

(Dwight Eisenhower): Oh, I don't believe that they will.

(President Kennedy): You don’t think they will?

(Dwight Eisenhower): No.

(President Kennedy): In other words you would take that risk if the situation seemed desirable?

(Dwight Eisenhower): Well, as a matter of fact, what can you do?

(President Kennedy): Yeah.

(Dwight Eisenhower): If this thing is such a serious thing, here on our flank, that we’re going to be uneasy and we know what thing is happening now. All right, you’ve got to use something.

(President Kennedy): Yeah.

(Dwight Eisenhower): Something may make these people shoot them off. I just don’t believe this will.

(President Kennedy): Yeah, right. (laughter)

(Dwight Eisenhower): In any event, of course, I’ll say this: I’d want to keep my own people very alert.

(President Kennedy): Yeah. (laughter) Well, we’ll hang on tight.

(Dwight Eisenhower): (laughter) Yes, sir.

Sometimes a president needs a good laugh, even if the future of the entire world is on him.

Reagan and Trump were good but the older I get, the more I appreciate Eisenhower. He avoided foreign wars and enabled the economy to grow. The three men shared two things in common: They were successes before they entered politics and were old as heck as president.