On the eve of D-Day, the Supreme Allied Commander wrote a note taking sole blame if the invasion failed and folded it into his wallet. This episode traces how Dwight Eisenhower, raised by a devoutly pacifist mother in Abilene, Kansas, became the architect of the largest amphibious assault in history. We cover the teenage infection he refused to let doctors amputate, the pact with his brother Edgar to work at a creamery to fund each other's education, and the West Point knee injury against Jim Thorpe that pushed him from player to coach.

Eisenhower spent World War I training tank crews stateside, was threatened with court-martial for publishing tank warfare theories with George Patton, and studied Clausewitz under mentor Fox Conner before serving with MacArthur. As president he ended the fighting in Korea, starved Joseph McCarthy of oxygen t ...