On June 6, 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower oversaw the launching of the world’s largest armada. An extraordinary flotilla of 176,000 men, 20,000 vehicles, and thousands of tons of stores and munitions left the shores of England and headed toward Normandy in France as part of the D-day invasion. Eisenhower’s description of this colossal human enterprise drew from a spiritual, not secular, vocabulary. This Texas-born Presbyterian saw the invasion quite simply as “the Great Crusade.” He also sought “the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.” Eisenhower’s Order of the Day is a remarkably succinct call to arms and rallying cry for battle. Essentially, Eisenhower’s appeal to the assembled forces—“Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force”—is built around no more than two full paragraphs; five exclamation points; less than three hundred words; and a terse, staccato, intensive series of short sentences. The tone, while calm and collected, is quintessential Eisenhower. His message is that the country was facing a monumental challenge and a daunting task but that the outcome could not be in doubt.