A Volume of Hope for Mankind

Senator Bob Dole of Russell, Kansas has penned a very personal account of World War II. The far away Italian mountainside where Dole wages war prepares the man in his twenties for a lifelong commitment to his country. Not only does he serve in World War II, with distinction, but he wears that valor as an emblem of character throughout his adulthood.

As Chairman of the National World War II Memorial, Dole's memoir is a timely tribute to the men and women whose sacrifices are remembered and honored there. Sen. Dole escorted fourteen members of Congress who were World War II veterans to the Memorial site several days before its dedication and was deeply moved by their reactions to it. Excerpts from his speech are included in the book. His grueling and lengthy recovery from wounds suffered in Italy is the force that directs him into a life of service.

Dole grows up in an impoverished but proud family in Russell, Kansas. Hard work and responsibility drive his childhood, with the knowledge that his efforts can always make for a better life. Creature comforts are slim, but the family is close-knit. Dole sprinkles many letters throughout the pages of ONE SOLDIER'S STORY that he has written to his parents, sisters and brother, from his college days in Lawrence, Kansas to his military station in Europe. His concern for his family's well-being is a resonant theme throughout his letters. Front and back inside cover pages display Dole's heartfelt sentiment about D-Day.

Dole works hard to earn the funds for college. He's off to the University of Kansas at Lawrence for a promising future. The six-foot-two athletically talented young student plays football, basketball, and track at K.U. During his sophomore year, in 1942, Dole's athletic endeavors compete with his scholarly progress. He has joined a fraternity and sends off growing numbers of his brothers to war. At 19, Dole joins the Army Reserve Corps and leaves the university. Dreams of playing basketball for the legendary coach Phog Allen must be set aside for an unknown future.

Dole recounts in detail his early experiences in the military. This period, though interesting, slows the reading a bit. He decides to try for Officer Training and succeeds. From there, his leadership skills are put to the test in Italy, where his unit must maintain ground gained by the Allies in mountainous terrain. His home becomes a foxhole.

The grizzly accounts of the day he is wounded are heartwrenching. Dole has included statements from the soldier who dragged him to safety after he is hit and near death. The defining moment in Dole's life comes when he is carried from the mountain and begins the long process of recovery. Never again will he excel in collegiate sports. But his lifelong virtues of endurance, fortitude, and faith in a power greater than himself will take this man into the livelihood that defines him as Senator Robert Dole, owner of a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

ONE SOLDIER'S STORY is a war story, a memoir written with emotion and genuine respect for sacrifices made by Dole's generation. His own grit and determination mold the man he becomes after his harrowing experiences on the battlefield. Not only does Dole recount his struggle to recovery with pathos, but his optimism illuminates the story throughout. ONE SOLDIER'S STORY is not a political statement; it is a volume of hope for mankind and the future of freedom.

--- Reviewed by Judy Gigstad

A TRUE PATRIOT

I could not put this book down. Senator Dole tells his story in such a way that you feel you are a part of his family. Many soldiers have a similar story to tell and are unable to find the words. Bob Dole has found the words for all the soldiers out there who came home and for those who didn't. A great read!

A Soldier's Story & A memoir of a career in government.

Dole's autobiography is very revealing and more educational than any government school.

Bob Dole was born in Russell, Kansas, in 1923. He was elected as U.S. representative from Kansas in 1960 and served four terms. In 1968 he was elected to the U.S. Senate. Dole was Gerald Ford's running mate in Ford's unsuccessful presidential campaign (1976) and campaigned unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980 and 1988. He has served as Senate majority leader (1985-87, 1995 to 1996) and minority leader (1987-95). In other words Dole was a career politician.

It is clear from the book that being a career politician is probably related to the fact that two weeks before the end of WWII, Dole was severely wounded and remained disabled for life.

He is not a gifted writer--his prose is often stilted, and he resorts too easily to cliches. That also sums up his political career. He gives no hints of understanding free market economics nor the need for cutting government. Dole shows why the Republican Party is a lost cause for liberty.

People sometimes mistakenly say that Dole is "conservative" but that is misleading. Dole served in the Senate for 27 years and government did nothing but grow. Dole exemplifies what is known as the "greatest spending generation."

Dole was the Republican candidate for president in 1996 against Bill Clinton. Given the choice between two big socialists, the voters went with the more charismatic Clinton. Even before Clinton, no republican president had ever cut the size and scope of government.Dole never got his chance to show that he could preside over massive socialism as president. Even so, his fellow republican-socialists are now twice as socialistic as Clinton was (in social spending alone).

The only way that Dole can be called biased is that he drones on about socialists (Democrats and Republicans) and ignores anyone who wants to cut government (Libertarians).

Bob Dole is stuck in silly left-right political analysis, as taught in government schools. He is still unaware of the Nolan chart or Diamond chart. He uses the word "liberal" unprofessionally to mean "left." His habit forgets the etymology of "liberal" for "liberty" (against government and for laissez-faire capitalism). That bad habit explains why republicans and democrats are the same: socialists. Bob Dole is an example of why government schools are unconstitutional and must end.

Dole doesn't do well addressing the massive growth in government in the USA. It seems like Dole doesn't think that government in the USA is big enough yet.

Dole is not libertarian and he uses the misnomer "public schools" to mean "government schools." No one would trust the government to tell the truth if it published books like Dole's. Why would the government tell the truth in government schools?

Dole doesn't have a problem with "patriotism" and the pledge of allegiance. Big problem: Dole don't arise each morning to gather with neighbors and robotically chant, as he only "loves" the pledge when government's schools lead children in robotic chanting every morning for twelve years of their lives upon the ring of a bell, like Pavlov's lapdogs of the state. Did I mention that Dole is an example of why government schools are unconstitutional and have destroyed a "free press" and why government schools must end?

Dole book suggests that he doesn't know that the pledge was written by a socialist (Francis Bellamy) in the USA and that the original salute was a straight-arm salute (as shown in web image searches for "original socialist salute"). Dole should know because he was born in 1923 and lived through the pledge's use of the Nazi-style salute (it changed in 1942). Dole doesn't know of the news-breaking discovery by the historian Rex Curry that the straight-arm salute of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis) came from the USA's pledge of allegiance and military salute, and not from ancient Rome. Dole seems unaware that Bellamy put flags in every school to promote a government takeover of education for widespread nationalization and socialism.

Dole is an example of why some educated socialists (socialists who know the origin of the pledge) laugh at so-called "conservatives," because socialists presume that conservatives like Dole have been duped into supporting socialism and is ignorant of the pledge's socialist past.

Francis Bellamy and his cousin and cohort Edward Bellamy were national socialists who idolized the military and wanted to nationalize the entire US economy, including all schools. It was a philosophy that led to the socialist Wholecaust (of which the Holocaust was a part) where millions were murdered (62 million by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 35 million by the Peoples' Republic of China, 21 million by the National Socialist German Workers' Party) in the worst slaughter in history. That is why the Bellamys are known as America's Nazis. All Holocaust Museums could expand four-fold with Wholecaust Museums.

Bellamy believed that government schools with pledges and flags were needed to brainwash children to embrace nationalism, militarism, and socialism.

Bellamy wanted the government to takeover everything and impose the military's "efficiency," as he said. It is the origin of the modern military-socialist complex.

Bellamy wanted a flag over every school because he wanted to nationalize and militarize everything, including all schools, and eliminate all of the better alternatives. During Bellamy's time the government was taking over education.

Bellamy wanted government schools to ape the military. Government schools were intended to create an "industrial army" (another Bellamy phrase, and the word "army" was not metaphorical) and to help nationalize everything else.

Because of the Bellamy way of thinking, government-schools spread and they mandated segregation by law and taught racism as official policy and did so even after the National Socialists were defeated, and well beyond.

Thereafter, the government's segregation legacy caused more police-state racism of forced busing that destroyed communities and neighborhoods and deepened hostilities.

Because of the Bellamy way of thinking, government-schools spread and they mandated the Nazi-style salute by law, flags in every classroom, and daily robotic chanting of the pledge of allegiance in military formation like Pavlov's lapdogs of the state.

The bizarre practices served as an example for three decades before they were adopted by the National Socialist German Workers' Party.

When Jesse Owens competed in the 1936 Olympics in Germany, his neighbors attended segregated government schools where they saluted the flag with the Nazi salute.

As under Nazism, children in the USA (including Jehovah's Witnesses and blacks and the Jewish and others) attended government schools where segregation was imposed by law, where racism was taught as official policy, and where they were required by law to perform the Nazi salute and robotically chant a pledge to a flag. If they refused, then they were persecuted and expelled from government schools and had to use the many better alternatives. There were also acts of physical violence.

The hypnotic "Sieg Heil" salute to a flag symbol mesmerized Americans long before it brainwashed Germans.

Jehovah's Witnesses were among the first people to publicly fight the government and its pledge ritual in the USA, during the same time that they fought it in Nazi Germany. They eventually achieved total victory over Nazi socialism. They achieved only partial victory over similar socialism in the USA. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that they could not be forced to perform the pledge. Laws still make teachers lead children in robotic chants of the socialist's pledge daily, on cue from the government. Jehovah's Witnesses and other children in government schools must watch the ritual performed by others.

The pledge gesture was altered and explicit school segregation by government ended. The Government's schools still exist, the federal flag brands government schools, and government's teachers must chant the pledge daily. Students are kept ignorant of the pledge's original salute and history. That is why the pledge still exists.

The USA also continued its Nazi numbering (social security from 1935) and its robotic pledge, with no stopping.

Today, the USA numbers babies, and government schools demand the numbers for enrollment, and the numbers track homes, workplaces, incomes, finances, and more, for life. School laws still tout the daily pledge, a bizarre ritual shunned by every other country.

Dole has discussed plans for "reform" of social security that would invest social security taxes in private businesses. At the height of Nazi power, the USA's government deliberately stepped onto the same path with national numbering imposed in 1935 with the social security system. The federal government was growing massively and attempting to nationalize the economy in many ways. The US Supreme Court struck down much of the new legislation as unconstitutional until the craven FDR pressured the Court into the "switch in time that socialized nine."

New social security reform ideas are so-called "privatization" plans that would nationalize all businesses, in addition to schools. It would impress the Bellamys. Dole does not have the ethics to discuss the other side of the issue (the proper side): ending government involvement in education, and ending the social security scam, its taxes and its Nazi numbering. If the antidisestablishmentarianism does not end, then the USA's police state will grow.

Dole has another bad habit: overuse of the hackneyed word "Nazi" so much that it might cause one to wonder if he knows what the abbreviation abbreviates. Many people forget that "Nazi" means "National Socialist German Workers' Party," and one reason people forget is because the word "Nazi" is overused by politicians like Dole who rarely or never say the actual name of the horrid party. A good mnemonic device is that the sick socialist swastika represented two overlapping "S" letters for "socialism" under the National Socialist German Workers' Party.

Overall, Dole's book was very revealing and educational and worth the time to review. Let's hope for a more enlightened sequel in the future.