Bob Dole

Bob Dole

"His fellow soldiers assumed he wouldn't survive his wounds—and he nearly didn't. Eventually, he was sent back to the US in a full body cast and spent thirty-nine months in recovery. He had lost all mobility in his right arm and hand, and getting dressed in the morning would be a challenge for the rest of his life."

This is how the Wall Street Journal describes Bob Dole's World War II war experience. The longtime legislator and presidential candidate died in his sleep Sunday morning at the age of ninety-eight. Like an entire generation of Americans, his life and legacy were shaped by his service in World War II and its lifelong effects.

The continuing cost of courage

Dole was born in the small western Kansas town of Russell, where his father ran an egg and cream stand and his mother sold sewing machines door to door. As a young man, Dole washed cars, delivered newspapers, and worked as a soda jerk at the local drugstore.

A three-sport letterman in high school, he made the basketball team at the University of Kansas under legendary coach Phog Allen. Then war broke out. Dole joined the Army and was made a second lieutenant in the infantry. Late in the war, in 1945, his unit took part in a spring offensive in Italy. His platoon was assigned to take a hill across a mine-laden field covered by enemy snipers. Dole was hit in the right shoulder by exploding shrapnel. Two teams of medics were gunned down attempting to rescue him before he was pulled to safety.

Dole was nominated for vice president in 1976 and for president in 1996. In 1997, after losing to incumbent president Bill Clinton, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Mr. Clinton.

He was a driving force behind the creation of the World War II Memorial on the National Mall. He also supported Freedom Honor Flights, organizing trips to Washington for World War II veterans so they could visit the memorial built in their honor.

Bob Dole would suffer the results of his war injuries for the rest of his life. The New York Times reported that he could not tie his shoes (he wore loafers). He could not cut his food with a knife. He could not lift his daughter, who had to stand on a chair so he could hug her. He clutched a pen in his right hand to keep his fingers from splaying and to ward off people who might try to shake it. He slept while clutching the sawed-off top of a wooden crutch wrapped in gauze. "It relaxes my hand," he said. "Otherwise, it gets sort of doubled up in there."

Dole was a hero, but like so many of "the Greatest Generation," he believed that he did only what any patriotic American would do -- give all he had to serve the country he loved.