Sgt. Mickey and General Ike

Originally published in 1946, this is a memoir of Eisenhower’s enlisted aide, Michael “Mickey” J. McKeogh, telling his experiences of serving the General for four years. An unabashed admirer of the general, he told a Washington Post reporter in 1948 that he knew “the Boss” about as well as one man can know another. “You see,” he explained, “I practically lived with him for four years and I saw him first thing in the morning and last thing at night. There was never anybody like him.” “Mickey had a choice job in the war, but it wasn’t easy, by any means. He was on call practically twenty-four hours a day and whenever he sought to get out of earshot of the General to go to a GI movie, or perhaps to steal an hour or two with Pearlie, he had to obtain the personal approval of the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Forces, whose reputation for fairness and generosity I can testify began at home. The old adage that no man is a hero to his valet is disproved by Mickey’s story. Few men ever had a more loyal and cheerful orderly, and in many ways, companion and confidant. “Former Naval Lieutenant Richard Lockridge has caught the spirit of Mickey’s story with uncanny perception. When I read some of the manuscript I could hear Mickey talking. “In years, probably decades and perhaps centuries to come students of history will find stories like this of value in judging the character of General Eisenhower. If Caesar’s orderly, as well as others close to great world figures during stirring times, had written a book like this while memory was fresh with details, how much better all of us would have known the characters who made and are making history.”—Introduction by HARRY C. BUTCHER, Naval Aide to General Eisenhower, 1942-1945