A sad report today that John S.D. Eisenhower, the son of a five-star general turned president who made his own career in the U.S. Army as well passed away Saturday at the age of 91.
Eisenhower lived on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in the community of Trappe, Md. His family provided no cause of death in a statement. John was born in Denver on August 3, 1922, the son of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Mamie Doud Eisenhower. Their first child had died of scarlet fever the year before at the age of 3. John grew up as his father rose in the ranks of the Army.
During Would War II, the senior Eisenhower became supreme commander of Allied Expeditionary Forces in 1943 and then general of the Army with a five-star rank. In 1952, Dwight was elected president in a landslide election and did it again in 1956.
Both father and son were graduates from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. John graduated on June 6, 1944, the same day his father oversaw the Allied invasion of Europe. He spent 35 years in the Army, including 19 years on active duty and several years in the Reserve. He retired with the rank of Brigadier General. “My dad being an Army officer, I was just born to it,” Eisenhower said in a C-SPAN interview in 1998. “I was raised in a military manner, and it was given that Army brats went to West Point, so I went to West Point in 1941. And being in the military has been my life.” Later, he taught English for three years at West Point, then volunteered for service during the Korean War and later became a battalion commander.
Eisenhower also served on his father’s White House staff for the last few years of his administration and later helped his father write his post-presidential memoirs. The younger Eisenhower began writing his own books then served as U.S. ambassador to Belgium during the first years of the Nixon administration. He soon returned to writing, focusing on the military’s relationship with government and politics. “I can’t get away from the military,” Eisenhower told C-SPAN. “That’s my readership. And I don’t think I want to.”
His first marriage to Barbara Eisenhower ended in divorce. He is survived by his second wife, Joanne, and his four children; daughters Anne, Susan and Mary and son David who married President Richard Nixon’s daughter Julie.
Both father and son were true American Patriots and John’s death is a true loss to our great country.
We here at FGGAM offer our prayers for the entire Eisenhower family.