Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Yes, it’s true that Dwight D. Eisenhower referred to himself as “a barefoot boy” in 1945 when he returned home victorious to Abilene, Kan., after World War II. And it was in that image that the architect Frank Gehry found inspiration for the design of the official memorial to Eisenhower for which groundbreaking is expected this year on the Washington Mall.
Yes, it’s true that Dwight D. Eisenhower referred to himself as “a barefoot boy” in 1945 when he returned home victorious to Abilene, Kan., after World War II. And it was in that image that the architect Frank Gehry found inspiration for the design of the official memorial to Eisenhower for which groundbreaking is expected this year on the Washington Mall.
I agree with the Eisenhower family. We remember Ike as a great general and as a president. Gehry seems to be really straining to push a "Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn" sentimentality button that aside from being painfully trite, just isn't the Ike that Americans remember.
I agree with the Eisenhower family. We remember Ike as a great general and as a president. Gehry seems to be really straining to push a "Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn" sentimentality button that aside from being painfully trite, just isn't the Ike that Americans remember.
I think the idea is neat and rather artistic, but not appropriate for Eisenhower. If it was going to be done as a statue park with his likeness at various points through his life, then fine, but Americans simply don't associate Ike as a farmboy with a lot of potential, they remember him this way:
I'm sensitive to the family's thoughts and wishes, but I personally love this design. I think Ike is a great American hero who should never be forgotten by the nation. I think what makes him so great is that he never lost his sense of himself as a barefoot farmboy with a lot of potentional.
I don't usually glorify the past or look to it as some golden age, but I think Ike is definitely a man of his time, and the time he represents was simpler and purer. The America that Ike grew up in was not the global, titantic force that it became in his adulthood. It was a simpler nation with fewer pretentions. It was a rural land filled with people who believed if they worked hard and did their best to live uprightly good things would come.
Ike was just a plain, ordinary man who who grew up in the ordinary plains of America. Like many of the folks from Abilene, Kansas he applied himself and did in his best in the endeavors that he undertook. He was not a genuis of mythical proportions or qualites. A statue depicting him as such wouldn't suit him or the democratic ideals he championed.
I bet if Lincoln could look down and see himself carved out of a gigantic slab of marble, he'd shake his head and laugh. I bet he'd prefer a smaller statue of himself splitting rails somewhere in Indiana, Kentucky or Illinois. Like Ike, Lincoln was just a simple, honest man who believed in hard work and discipline. I'm sure he'd be the first to reflect any personal glory that his habits or destiny gathered back onto the genuis of a nation that allows simple, ordinary men and women to reach their fullest potentional.
I don't want to see Ike glaring down on us like Zeus. I want to see Ike looking up to the great things he accomplished in wonder -- was that me? Did I do that? For me, that's far more inspirational and captures the true spirit of this great nation of ours. We have lived in a democratic republic for so long, we sometimes forget just how remarkable it is that our greatest heroes often come from some of our humblest quarters.
I hope to some day have the chance to take my daughter to this memorial as it is currently conceived and tell her about Ike and draw some lessons about simplicity, humility and the strong rustic roots of our nation. I think my dad, who was a boy when Ike was president, would appreciate this memorial as well. I can't be sure, but I think so.
I love the idea for the memorial. Brilliant! I had just turned 7 when Ike was elected. I can still remember sitting in the car while my parents voted. My parents and I were native Kansans, and I never heard a bad word about Ike in my household, so I'd imaging they were voting for him, but politics were seldom discussed in our home.
It sounds like what the artist wants to portray is Eisenhower's life, and I love that thought. As an elder myself, if I were ever to be memorialized (won't happen), I'd like my whole life considered, not just the pinnacle of it. I've accomplished some successes, but "I" am simply that barefoot Kansas farm kid at heart, and anything I became after that was due in large part to those simple beginnings. Memories of sitting at the edge of the lake with a fishing pole in my hands or hunting rabbits with my dog are still my fondest. Those years were what really defined me throughout my life.
Ike would like the theme of the young barefoot boy looking into his future. It's not how most of us remember him, but it's more the real Dwight. It's how he would remember his life.
The Dust Bowl is what drove my grandfather out of Oklahoma and into Richmond, California. He had a wife and two children under the age of seven. As a family man in my mid 30s now, I can appreciate how weighty his situation was. I'd rather face the Taliban in combat than face the prospect of being out of work and not being certain about how I am going to feed my wife and daughter.
Things worked out though. He found work in the shipyards. He went on to build ships that were used in the war on fascism. He was a quiet man, not given to displays of pride, but I think he took satisfaction in the fact that his labor supported the war effort. He was too young to fight in World War I and too old to fight in World War II. Knowing my grandpa, I'm sure it bothered him that he didn't get the chance to do his part in battle.
I don't know who grandpa voted for in the 50s, like Wyno pointed out, his generation wasn't given to blustering about politics, but if I had to bet, I'd put money on Ike. They both believed in hard work and personal integrity. Had it not been for those thoroughly midwestern rural values, the dustbowl might have beaten him.
The more I think about this era, the more excited I'm getting about the memorial. I hope they come up with something everyone can agree on. No matter what the memorial ends up being, I'm definitely taking my daughter to go see it.
The $112 million memorial will be primarily financed by taxpayers and will be dedicated on Memorial Day 2015, 70 years after the war ended.
You wanta raise money for memorials... fine!
Don't use my tax money to do it!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
