For Dwight D. Eisenhower, the immediate postwar years were filled with change, new challenges, and frustrations. Throughout this entire period, the American people made it clear that they wanted Ike as their president, but he was yet to be convinced. Each time, as he prepared to retire, he was called back to service by his sense of duty.

". . . Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in blood of his followers and sacrifices of his friends. Conceivably a commander may have been professionally superior. He may have given everything of his heart and mind to meet the spiritual and physical needs of his comrades. He may have written a chapter that will glow forever in the pages of military history. Still, even such a man -- if he existed -- would sadly face the facts that his honors cannot hide in his memories the crosses marking the resting places of the dead.