Good evening.

Welcome to another edition of Inside the Cover.

Tonight I want to focus on Stephen Edward Ambrose and his 1998 book, The Victors.

It is now time to go inside the cover.

We could spend our whole evening talking about Ambrose.

He was a historian, academic, and author, most note for his books on World War Two and his biographies of Eisenhower and Nixon.

As you can see, he was a prolifi and he was a successful writer.

Ambrose was a history professor from 1960 until his retirement in 1995.

He taught at a number of universities, including Kansas State, where he was the Dwight Eisenhower Professor of War and Peace during the 1970-71 academic year.

During that year he participated in the heckling of President Nixon's Landon Lecture.

At the end of that academic year, Ambrose and KSU mutually agreed to part ways.

As I said, tonight's book is The Victors.

I was not previously aware of this book when I found it at my little Fre Public Library on 29th Street.

Subtitled ‘Eisenhowe and His Boys: The Men of World War Two, I found it to be an impactfu read that brought a true sense of humanness to warfare, however ironic that may seem.

Time does not allow me to cover the book in as much detail as I would prefer.

Nor can I capture the essence of Ambrose's treatment of the war, including some powerful writing about the D-Day invasion.

However, I would note tha one of the aspects of the book I most enjoyed was Ambrose's appreciation and respect for General Eisenhowe and the soldiers he commanded, Many of them extremely young men serving their country and the free world because they were asked to-- citizen soldiers.

Here I want to deviate fro my script because I think it's serendipitous that I today, just this afternoon, found an article from a newspaper about my own father.

If you'll bear with me... Tech 5 Dean Ayres was discharged from service on October 28th, 1945, after three years and 11 months of service, two years and six days of which was spent overseas.

Dean took part in the campaigns in Normandy, northern France, Rhineland the Ardennes and Central Europe.

He received a Purple Heart for shrapnel wounds which kept him in a hospital for two months.

Dean was with the Army engineers in the 2nd Infantry and served overseas in Ireland, England, Wales, Germany, France, Belgium, Czechoslovakia and Austria.

Again, this was a young man, a young farm boy, about two years out of high school.

In 1964, 20 years after D-Day, Eisenhower was interviewed o Omaha Beach by Walter Cronkite.

Let me here comment tha I really miss Walter Cronkite.

I want to close our show with the following commentary from the book.

“Looking out at the channel.

Eisenhower said, ‘you see these people out there swimming and sailing their little pleasure boats and taking advantage of the nice weather and the lovely beach, Walter?

And it is almost unreal to look at it today and remember what it was.

But it's a wonderful thin to remember what those fellows 20 years ago were fighting for, and sacrificing for what they did to preserve our way of life, not to conquer any territory, not for any ambitions of our own, but to make sure that Hitler could not destroy freedom in the world.

I think it's just overwhelming to think of the lives that were given for that principle.

Paying a terrible price on this beach alone, on that one day, 2000 casualties.

But they did i so that the world could be free.

It just shows what free men will do rather than be slaves.” That's our show.

Tonight, we have featured Doctor Stephen Ambrose and his book The Victors.

I recommend the author and the book.

Good night and see you next time.