Burnt Orange Report

A Book I'll Have to Read

By Andrew Dobbs

The New York Times has a wonderful review of Sen. Bob Dole's new memoirs, entitled One Soldier's Story. The book covers Dole's childhood in Kansas, his service in World War II and his recovery from the brutal injuries he received while over there. It sounds like a great book about one of America's most prominent leaders.

The shame is that today's kids grow up without knowing the names of past leaders unless they were president. As a history major and someone who loves the study of America's past, I deplore the state of history education in our public schools today. Too often it is just a string of presidents and wars, with little discussion of what happened in between and the important leaders on other levels. I don't remember ever hearing the names Sam Rayburn, Richard Russell, Cactus Jack Garner, Marcus Hanna or many of the other giants of our nation's history that never rose to the office of president in my public education. Bob Dole desperately wanted to be president, but because he never was he'll be forgotten in a generation.

This is a shame. I am a Democrat and he is a Republican, and I would not have voted for him. But he was a far different kind of Republican from the kind we see today. I am struck by the memory from the 1996 campaign of President Clinton and Senator Dole walking side by side, cordially talking to one another during budget negotiations while they were running against one another for president. He had class, and for every boneheaded partisan blast he put forth (1976's "Democrat wars" statement comes to mind), he also said some very classy things (such as when he refused to talk about Clinton's personal life in 1996, though it would have helped his campaign). He wanted to get things done for the people of this country, and was willing to work with Democrats to do that. He is someone I can respect.

So I'll get his new book and give it a read. His service to his country in the House and Senate and as the leader of his party was second only to his service in the Second World War, where he lost the use of his right arm, most of the feeling in his left arm and spent 39 months in hospitals learning how to walk again. An excerpt from the review shows what a hero sounds like:

When he was a teenage soda jerk in Russell, Kan., Bob Dole liked to give his customers at Dawson's Drugstore "the flip." A star athlete at the local high school, he would toss a scoop of ice cream in the air, where it turned a few somersaults, and then catch it in a cup before putting the finishing touches on a sundae or a milkshake. Norman Rockwell should have been there.

After the war, Mr. Dole returned to Dawson's. Badly wounded under heavy fire in the hills of northern Italy, he had spent 39 months in military hospitals. Step by agonizing step, his right arm strapped to a heavy triangular brace, he walked from his house to Main Street and made his way to the soda fountain. "Bob, you're a real hero," a customer told him. Mr. Dole shrugged him off, saying, "The heroes are still over there."

Even though he's from a different party, and even though I would disagree with him on many important issues, I'll tell my children about Bob Dole- in the hopes that even if they don't share his politics, they'll share his character. With Tom DeLay and Rick Santorum and a host of other crooked, autocratic, ignorant leaders in that party today, the GOP took a big dive when Bob Dole retired. Let's hope we have more like him in both parties-- our country deserves it.