A D-Day Model of Leadership America Should Seek to Follow

By James H. McGee

Friday, June 05, 2026

 

This weekend marks the 82nd anniversary of the D-Day landings. One suspects that, after the major celebrations that marked the 80th anniversary in 2024, 2026 will be a much quieter affair. This, perhaps, is appropriate. Of the 16.4 million Americans who served worldwide during World War II, only around 45,000 remain, and they die every day — the very youngest are now in their late 90s. Some 73,000 Americans actually landed in Normandy on D-Day. No one has precise figures for the number of American D-Day survivors, but if we extrapolate from the WWII figures, perhaps only approximately 200 of them are still alive — and it might be fewer.

 

So the “lived experience” of D-Day, to use a currently popular construction, is reaching its inevitable vanishing point. It’s now become all about remembrance, and, one hopes, honest remembrance and reflection worthy of the event’s immense historical significance. It’s good to see that D-Day still inspires thoughtful popular presentations, such as the recently released film Pressure, which dramatizes the critical role weather forecasting played in General Eisenhower’s D-Day decision-making.

 

This year, however, brings a unique juxtaposition of historical anniversaries, and one that calls for a moment’s joint reflection. This year’s D-Day anniversary falls scarcely a month before the 250th anniversary of the founding of our nation. The celebrations will be many and varied, and much will be made of the Declaration of Independence and our other founding documents. But before D-Day gives way to the larger anniversary, there are documents worthy of remembering, documents that connect D-Day to something larger, something worthy of reflection amidst the 250th anniversary celebrations. Both of these documents were written by General Eisenhower in his capacity as Supreme Allied Commander.

 

The first is his “Order of the Day,” the formal message to his troops on the eve of the invasion. In it, he spoke of a “Great Crusade,” of how “the hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.” He acknowledged the challenges they would face, saying, “Your enemy is well-trained, well-equipped, and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.” He offered encouragement by reminding his soldiers that they were themselves well-prepared and well-equipped for the coming battle. And he concluded by beseeching the blessing “of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.”

 

The second Eisenhower document, I would argue, is one that matters even more. As he ordered the landings to take place, he also took a quiet moment in which to secretly consider the possibility of failure. He scribbled a short note, that read as follows:

 

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 upon 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.

 

Thankfully, the landings succeeded, albeit at great cost, and Eisenhower was spared the need to make this message public. Also thankfully, a thoughtful aide retrieved the discarded note and preserved it for posterity.

 

Taken together, these documents speak to what made Eisenhower a great general and a greater man. For all the volumes written about Eisenhower’s weaknesses as a strategist — in my opinion, greatly overblown — his character made him perhaps the only figure capable of welding together the grand Allied coalition. Not Patton, nor Montgomery, nor Bradley, nor any of the others whose success required a vision that consistently rose above the petty and the personal.

 

But more than anything else, his second, never-needed note of failure reminds us of the moral qualities we should always hope to find in a great leader — qualities that, as one looks around today, seem all too often lacking in those who jockey for positions of leadership. In that quiet moment on the eve of D-Day, and in all his actions as Supreme Commander, Eisenhower combined strength with humility.

 

I don’t mean to make this all about Eisenhower. Harry Truman, for example, made a similar message more pungently with his famous axiom, “The buck stops here.” Truman’s quiet and dignified departure from the presidency, at a time when there were no huge book deals nor even a pension fund for ex-presidents, offers yet another lesson in character and leadership.

 

One of the greatest of the Founding Fathers, John Adams, spoke directly to the need for these kinds of leaders, writing that “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Implicit in Adams’s message was the understanding that only such a people could be trusted to elect and support moral and religious leaders.

 

On this, then, the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, let’s honor the handful of survivors who remain, those who, in President Franklin Roosevelt’s words, “this day set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, our civilization, and to set free a struggling humanity.” Let’s remember their comrades whose lives ended on that day.

 

But let’s also take the occasion to ask something more of ourselves, to ask that, as citizens, we insist on leaders whose character might combine strength with humility, as exemplified by General Eisenhower as he prepared himself to acknowledge — and to take responsibility for — what would have become the war’s greatest failure. As we honor the anniversary of D-Day, we might also see in his example the model of leadership that might see us through the 250 years to come.