Major Jonathan Bratton

Once it becomes his responsibility, however, he is running everything from the troop buildup, the phony army, the rehearsal landings on the British coast.

And then that just like mind numbing.

pulling your nails out anxiety of, will we get the best weather for this cross-channel operation?

He's the one who's making the call, hey, we got to push it from the end of May into June, and then makes that decision on June 6th to go.

So the shape of it, how it looks, how it is prepared, and then down to the very last details, which I think are why, to me, it's a mark of why I think Eisenhower is up here on this list of greats.

Yes, he's not leading soldiers out in the field.

He's not going to share these dangers.

But he does go down prior to the invasion and goes down and starts talking to the airborne troops.

And he talks to any soldiers he can find prior to this invasion to just give them that idea that, hey, I am there with you in spirit.

I think it is one of Eisenhower's greatest regrets is that he never really did get to

command troops in combat.

He always had so many people looking down on him saying, oh, well, you were just a figurehead.

You were just a sort of diplomatic commander.

What he did is just so much more

rigorous and uh it's hard because you can't it doesn't have that everyone could sort of understand oh the dangers of combat life or death you know it's sort of binary there what he sort of goes through is this you know three and a half years of just sort of soul ringing tension and anxiety that is all bearing on him and also the feeling of if he screws up it is lives lost

Nathaniel Green is the everyman's soldier.

He's not high profile.

He's not the Benedict Arnold.

He's not out there grabbing headlines either by, you know,

crazy great things or crazy really bad things.