Bob Dole (1923–2021)

Biographies are not my favorite genre, I don't recall ever reading an autobiographical memoir (or wanting to), and I routinely turn my nose up at books by or about politicians, so I had almost no expectations of enjoying this book. Imagine my surprise to disover that, in fact, I loved it!

I chose this book solely because of Dole's connection to my home state, Kansas. Not only does Kansas play a starring role, but Dole's story is one which should make all Kansans proud that he is a native son. show more After being born into a blue-collar family in 1923, Bob learned from his parents' example that success comes only with hard work, dedication, and sacrifice. More an athlete than student, he attended KU hoping to make the basketball team (then as now, it was a basketball-crazy school) but was studying pre-med. He was a freshman when Pearl Harbor was bombed in December of 1941 but waited until completing the sophomore year before enlisting in the army in 1943. He spent the next year doing basic training, specialized training, then OCS before being sent to Italy as a 2nd lieutenent in 1944. It was there, taking part in the effort to gain control of the Po valley in northern Italy, that he was wounded - a gunshot wound which ruined his right shoulder and damaged the spinal cord - just weeks before the end of the war in Europe.

He spent the next 39 months in one army hospital after another. He was shipped home to Kansas completely paralyzed and encased in a plaster body cast and nearly died more than once. His mother took an apartment in Topeka and was at his bedside constantly. For more than a year he was unable to feed himself or take care of his own most basic needs. It was through a combination of his own subborn determination, the love and support of family and friends, the medical care provided by the army, and the good fortune to find a surgeon willing to work for free that he was finally able to walk again and regain much of the use of his left arm and hand. More importantly, he learned to be thankful for what he had left and not dwell on what he had lost.

After finally being discharged from the hospital, and the army, he was married and moved to Arizona to complete his degree - this time in pre-law. Back in Kansas for law school, he entered politics when he realized that being willing to go to war to defend our nation isn't enough unless one is also willing to defend it at home. Not all threats to our liberty come from outside our borders. He first ran for the state House of Representatives in 1950, after changing parties to become a Republican. And the rest, I guess, is history, for that is where the story ends.

He wrote the book with straightforward language, neither puffing himself up, nor being excessively modest. He shows us his love of family, his quiet sense of humor, his lofty goals and unswaying belief that he would achieve those goals, and his feelings of frustration and discouragement when things didn't go his way. It is easy and pleasant reading, and after finishing I wished I could shake his hand and thank him for his service to our state and to our nation. But, I have the feeling that he would continue to claim that every soldier who has served has a story to tell, and this one is no more important than any of them. show less

As the title implies, this is a fairly thin book, and the compiler, former Senator Robert Dole, could have profitably cut it to one-third of its length. With a few noteworthy exceptions - Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, and John Kennedy - American presidents have been remarkably unfunny men, alternating instead between dourness and dyspepsia. Most of the "jokes" in this volume were either insults that one or another president hurled at bystanders, or genuinely funny remarks made by someone show more associated with a particular president. Dole, whose own sense of humor was notably absent during his run for the presidency, makes a sincere but unsuccessful effort to stretch out a handful of presidential bons mots to 240 pages. In sum: Not Recommended. show less

A few funny anecdotes and quotes (and quips) but nothing much more here. Maybe a chuckle or two, but nothing out-right knee-slapping or laughing out loud humorous.

Interesting read. I didn't know much about him before reading this book.