"Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force.
"You are about to embark on the great crusade toward which we have striven these many months.
"The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you."
So began General Dwight David Eisenhower’s Order for the Day addressed to the troops preparing to assault Hitler’s Fortress Europe on the shores of Normandy, June 6, 1944.
The typed order was distributed to the troops while he broadcast it to the world on the BBC.
But what is little known is that Gen. Eisenhower hand wrote another letter the night before.
It was a letter that he hoped he would never have to send.
It read:
"Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops.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."
Eisenhower knew how risky his decision was, and he took sole responsibility for making it.
If the landings had failed, he would have resigned. Honor and duty would have dictated it.
But taking responsibility for failure and doing the honorable thing have somehow disappeared from our civilian and military leadership in 2023 America.
And the failures are mounting.
The recent repeated foul-ups in the air traffic control systems run by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) haven’t yet led to fatal encounters either on the ground or in the air but is it just a matter of time before they do?
The FAA is an agency within the Department of Transportation, and it is the responsibility of the Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.
Secretary Buttigieg says these things are “unacceptable” and has blamed everyone and everything but himself.
But he is the head of the agency and ultimately the buck stops with him.
Secretary Buttigieg failed and if he had any honor he would resign.
But he won’t.
Buttigieg is a hack who took this job to pad his thin resume thereby furthering his own political ambitions.
What he knows about transportation you could "fit in a thimble" as mother used to say.
The more recent and troubling failure of leadership is that of the American military and the intelligence apparatus of this country.
The Chinese spy balloon that traversed the nation gathering intelligence was only acknowledged by the Pentagon once it was spotted by ordinary citizens and was no longer a secret.
If it hadn’t been spotted, I doubt the American people would have ever known it even existed.
But it wasn’t the first time.
It happened at least three times during the Trump Administration and those went undetected.
When speaking to reporters after the spy airship was finally shot down, NORAD commander four-star Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck said,
"Every day as NORAD commander, it is my responsibility to detect threats to North America. I will tell you that we did not detect those previous threats."
Then Gen. VanHerck failed in his duty.
When addressing the reporters, the general should have paraphrased Eisenhower’s note if D-Day had failed and added to his initial comments, "Any blame or fault is mine alone."
And the next words out of his mouth should have been, "I have offered the president my resignation effect immediately."
That’s what Ike would have done. That’s what honor required.
And if he was not going to resign for his failure, President Biden should have fired him.
But that too would have required honor, something that is lacking in our President and American leadership as a whole.
But the pattern was set long before this.
No one was sacked or resigned for the intelligence failures of 9-11 that killed almost 3,000 Americans.
No one was sacked or resigned for the false narrative of WMDs in Iraq that led to a war without end.
And no one was sacked or resigned for the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan that left an indelible stain on American honor.
In each instance no one was willing to step forward and take responsibility for the failure, they just made excuses.
American scientist and inventor George Washington Carver once said, "Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from people who have a habit of making excuses."
I guess failure is an option after all.
Patrick Dorinson is a writer and commentator who has worked in the political arena as a participant and observer for 35 years-plus. He as been a columnist for the Fox News.com Opinion section. For eight years he hosted his own radio show, "The Cowboy Libertarian" on iHeart media. Patrick currently can be seen as a guest on numerous shows on Newsmax TV. Usually you’ll find him riding "Beamer," his horse. Patrick Dorinson's Reports — Here.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.