Former Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas died in the wee hours of this morning after suffering through Stage IV lung cancer for several months. Dole was a Kansas Republican who served a long and honorable Senate leadership career from 1969 until 1996. He was a WWII hero, suffering a near-fatal injury from Nazi machine gun fire in Italy. On a nearby hill, a soldier who would become one of Dole's best friend's also suffered a similar injury from that incoming Nazi attack. That soldier, who with Dole, managed to survive, eventually served together in the Senate (but on opposite sides of the aisle), was former Senator Daniel K. Inouye (D) of Hawaii. The two first met in a US Army field hospital surgical tent near Trieste in the Northern Italian Alps.

Dole's wife (now widow) is former Sen. and former Secretary of Transportation Mary Elizabeth Alexander "Liddy" Dole of Salisbury.

The best of the best.I met him outside the Senate chambers back in the '80s.I just nodded and said "Senator Dole" , he came over to me and asked me where I was from etc.Could not have been more gracious.Wish I had been carrying a camera.

Saw him a couple years back outside the WWII memorial in DC 1 fall Saturday when the Panthers played in Washington. He was in a wheelchair and looking rough, but pretty awesome how he and Elizabeth were willing to greet and talk to people throughout that afternoon. His presidential bid in 96 was 1 of the 1st elections I really kept up with as a kid. Being from Salisbury myself, it was a cool idea of the 1st lady being from our home town. He game a campaign speech at Catawba college, HUGE event for the town of Salisbury at the time.

I attended the same church as Gene Burns, the man who dragged Daniel Inuoye to safety the day his arm was injured (blown off?). Bob Dole, Gene Burns, Daniel Inouye - all American heroes from the Greatest Generation.