politics - an ethic perhaps best symbolized by the pen in his right hand. He also in 1983 created the Dole Foundation to help provide for and support programs for those with disabilities, and the foundation played a large role in securing passage of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act.Īnd for all the adversity Dole faced from that fateful day in Italy, it kick-started an ethic that propelled him to the forefront of U.S. During that failed campaign for president, Dole told the New York Times that he hoped to serve as an inspiration to people with disabilities and to help make the world a more accessible place.

senator and as the Republican nominee in the 1996 U.S.

Those experiences that hardened Dole, and they were experiences he never hid but instead used in relating to disadvantaged Americans as a U.S. But it was the use of his right arm and hand that he so desperately sought to restore, undergoing extensive therapy and seven failed surgeries. 26, 1991.įor his sacrifices, Dole received two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster. Bob Dole, R-Kansas, talks with the Lawrence Coalition for Peace on Jan. He would spend the next two and a half years at the Percy Jones Army Medical Center in Battle Creek, Mich., in a head-to-hip plaster cast, having lost a kidney and full use of his right arm. Susan Page's appreciation: A belief in hard work, an aversion to big talk and Kansas roots he never lost: Bob Dole's abiding legacyĭole collapsed onto the battlefield, and it was nine hours before medics could evacuate him to a field hospital. More: A timeline of Bob Dole's life: War hero, Republican leader, presidential candidate When he saw a fellow soldier go down, Dole went to help pull him into a manhole, and as he scrambled out, he felt a sharp sting in his shoulder. camps and attending the Officers Candidate School at Fort Benning in Georgia, Dole deployed to Italy as a second lieutenant in the Army’s 10th Mountain Division in late 1944.īut just a few months into that deployment, Dole on April 14, 1945, led an assault on Hill 913 north of Castel D’Aiano, with the soldiers taking heavy artillery and aerial fire. Army’s Reserve Corps, leaving for active duty in June 1943. Staff/Paul BeaverĪ native Kansan, Dole as a young adult was briefly a student-athlete on the University of Kansas’ football, basketball and track teams when in December 1941, he heard over the radio that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. Bob Dole told Topeka Rotarians on Thursday that developments in the Middle East had overshadowed domestic issues but nothing was more important than the federal budget and successful efforts to reduce the deficit.

Ronald knox anime character database