A fascinating read. Check it out.

Eisenhower was possessed of a remarkable, disarming smile, a reflection of the man’s transparent decency; an early D-Day planner, Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Morgan, once claimed that Ike’s grin was “worth an army corps in any campaign.” In the photo in question, however, the famous Eisenhower smile was not to be seen. Rather, surrounded by men of the 101st, the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force is looking grave indeed, his right arm raised in what seems to be a Patton-like gesture of bold, even fierce, encouragement. Lieutenant Wallace Strobel, his face blackened with burnt-cork camouflage, looks just as serious as the general addressing him. 

What was Ike saying, people have wondered for decades? What do you say to men about to jump out of C-47s into the fiery cauldron of war? Mary Jean Eisenhower got an unexpected answer on meeting Strobel at the christening of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.

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