America loses great stateman
Bob Dole, a great American statesman, passed away last week at age 98. Dole did not seem destined to live remotely this long. In April 1945, he lay battered and unconscious on a Northern Italy battlefield. Lieutenant Dole of the 10th Mountain Division had been commanded to lead an assault on a German machine gun outpost. As he ran to assist a fallen comrade, enemy shells and gunfire battered his upper right back and right arm. A sergeant rolled Dole to safety and injected him with a large dose of morphine, marking “M” on Dole’s forehead in Dole’s own blood to keep passing medics from giving him a lethal dose. After three years, eight surgeries, and two life-threatening infections, Dole gradually recovered, though he always held a pen in his lifeless right hand due to his severe war wounds.
