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View Full Version : Bob Dole’s final mission



Gman
06-24-2018, 17:20
I thought this Washington Post article was pretty cool;
Bob Dole’s final mission (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/bob-dole’s-final-mission/ar-AAyPkbH)


Each Saturday, before Bob Dole sets off on his latest vocation, he has cornflakes, a little sugar on top, and a bottle of chocolate Boost.

It takes less time to get dressed now that the 94-year-old finally allows a nurse to help him, but it remains a rough half-hour on a body racked by injury and age. The blue oxford has to be maneuvered over the dead right arm and the shoulder that was blown away on an Italian hillside. The pressed khakis over the scarred thigh. A pair of North Face running shoes, the likes of which his artillery-blasted hands have been unable to tie since 1945.

Then comes the hard part — getting there. On this particular June Saturday, the Lincoln Town Car with the Kansas plates is unavailable, so Nathanial Lohn, the former Army medic who serves as Dole’s nurse, helps the nonagenarian into Lohn’s Honda Insight. It’s tight, but good enough for the 20-minute drive to a monument the former senator all but built himself.

There, from a handicapped parking spot, he eases into the wheelchair as the greetings begin — “Oh my gosh, Bob Dole!”— finally rolling into his place in the shade just outside the main entrance to the National World War II Memorial.

And then they come, bus after bus, wheelchair after wheelchair, battalions of his bent brothers, stooped with years but steeped in pride, veterans coming to see their country’s monument to their sacrifice and to be welcomed by of one of their country’s icons.

“Good to see you. Where you from?” Dole says, over and over, as they roll close, sometimes one on each side. New York, Tennessee, Nevada, the old roll-call once again. “Let’s get a picture.” “Thank you for your service.” “What about your service?” “How old are you?” “I’m 90.” “I’m 94.” “Where you from?” “Good to see you.”

He’ll do it for more than three hours on this muggy day, more than six hours on others, staying until the last veteran has gone on by to see the grand columns and fountains behind him. They pump his left hand — the one with some numb feeling left — and squeeze his shoulders, and sometimes he gets home not just tired but gently battered by humanity and humidity alike.

“Physically, it takes a toll,” Lohn says, watching his charge from a few feet away with a waiting bottle of water. “I may find five new bruises on him tonight. But he won’t miss it.”

Dole has been coming for years — weather and his health permitting — to greet these groups of aging veterans, brought at no cost from throughout the country by the nonprofit Honor Flight Network. As the many missions of a mission-driven life (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-dole-is-back-in-kansas-running-for-nothing-but-running-hard/2014/04/22/21c15ef6-c9eb-11e3-b81a-6fff56bc591e_story.html?utm_term=.713b44c289a8) have faded into history — combat hero, champion for the disabled, Senate majority leader, 1996 Republican presidential candidate (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bob-dole-on-life-after-losing-the-1996-presidential-election/2012/09/28/eaef4102-f78e-11e1-8398-0327ab83ab91_story.html?utm_term=.f9b030cd3e03) — this final calling has remained, down to just Saturdays, sometimes derailed by the doctors, but still a duty to be fulfilled.

“It’s just about the one public service left that I’m doing,” he says. “We don’t have many of the World War II vets left. It’s important to me.”

But it’s important for him, too. He seems to get more energized with each encounter, frail in his chair but his still-bright eyes locking in on the next old tail gunner or rifleman or supply corps clerk trundling toward him.

“I tell them it doesn’t matter where you’re from, what war you served in, whether you were wounded or not wounded,” Dole says. “We’re all in this together.”
...there's a bit more to the article with photos at the link above.

flogger
06-24-2018, 18:47
Great American right there. Thanks for posting it.

Great-Kazoo
06-24-2018, 19:04
Great American right there. Thanks for posting it.

If he had shown the humorous side of him as was shown when he appeared on Leno. IMO he would have won the election.

.455_Hunter
06-24-2018, 19:40
As a 2LT, I had the honor of meeting Senator Dole on the afternoon of Veterans Day in 1998 at the Tomb of the Unknowns. He chose to pay his respects in the quiet of the afternoon since Slick Willy had laid the wreath in the morning with the expected media circus. It was quite a shock for a small group of us newly minted Officers to hear a hearty "Hello there!" only to turn around and see man who should have been President approaching us with a broad grin. Definitely the most "important" person I have met, far out ranking the sea hag herself that I met in 1993 (still not sure if my hand was permanently damaged or contaminated).

Mazin
06-24-2018, 19:51
Bob Dole.....

[Beer]

OtterbatHellcat
06-24-2018, 20:56
That's cool.....Elizabeth is pretty cool too.

zteknik
06-24-2018, 21:07
A very humble man indeed. He would have made a great president.

Jeffrey Lebowski
06-24-2018, 22:31
A very humble man indeed. He would have made a great president.

.

BPTactical
06-25-2018, 08:49
10th Mountain Division warrior.
That right there sets him above the rest.

wctriumph
06-25-2018, 15:14
Bob Dole, American. God bless him.

Joe_K
06-25-2018, 22:59
I still remember, how sad I was as a kid that he lost the 96’ election, and that Clinton had won. It will be a sadder day when he is no longer with us.