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Executive Times |
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2005 Book Reviews |
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One Soldier’s
Story: A Memoir by Bob Dole |
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Rating: •• (Mildly Recommended) |
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Click on
title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Understated Bob Dole’s
memoir, One
Soldier’s Story, describes his childhood in Here’s an excerpt, all of Chapter 13, “Inches and Miles,” pp. 159-168: If you’ve ever had your arm or leg fall
asleep because of poor blood circulation, you know that weird, funny feeling
when that part of your body goes numb. Now, imagine that your entire body
fell asleep for several weeks; then slowly you began to sense some feeling
coming back. That’s what I was experiencing during the last few days of my
stay in The tingle I felt in my
legs and fingers, those barely perceptible sensations like tiny needles
pricking my skin, motivated me to try even harder each day in my attempts to
move. I focused as intently as I could for as long as I could on one particular
part of my body, trying desperately to get a response. I’d grit my teeth
until I thought I was going to crack them, as I attempted to will something
to move, but nothing happened. I couldn’t raise my hands,
I couldn’t move my legs. Nothing. Then, ever so slowly, I noticed some
feeling in my legs. I wasn’t ready to go dancing, but I could wiggle my toes,
and move my legs a bit. Even more amazingly, on
April 27, slightly less
than two weeks since I’d been shot and instantly paralyzed, my right
arm moved a few inches. The arm was in a cast, and I still couldn’t feel anything
in my right hand. Truth is, the motion may have been due to some reflexes
contracting in my arm muscles, but it gave me hope, nonetheless. Overflowing
with optimism, I sent word home that same day: I’m feeling pretty good
today. I’m just a little nervous and restless, but I’ll be okay before long.
I’m getting so I can move my right arm a little, and I can also move my legs.
I seem to be improving every day and there isn’t any reason why I shouldn’t
be as good as new before long. Send
me something to read and something to eat. Love, Bob As I learned later, there
were a number of reasons why I might never be as good as new.
.
. but I didn’t know that
then. And even if I had been aware of them, I would not have mentioned them
to Mom and Dad. They had enough to worry about without being overly concerned
about me. Each morning I thought, This
might be the day good things start happening for me. This could be the
day: that I’ll start getting better, that before long, the doctors will
remove the plaster body cast, and I’ll be on my way to recovery—to be able to
breathe normally, to feed myself, to eat normally, to do the simple things
in life we tend to take for granted, such as rolling :~ over in bed or going to the bathroom;
before long, I’ll be able ~ to walk, run, shoot a basketball, or catch a
football just as well as I had done back in Kansas. Just give me time. As is often the case with
any traumatic blow to a person’s physical or emotional well-being, I didn’t
totally understand the seriousness of my injuries, and I was not ready to
accept the fact that my life would be changed forever. On the morning of
April 14, 1945, I
could raise my right hand high in the air and motion the men in my platoon to
follow me. It’s been more than sixty years since that morning, and I’ve not
raised my right hand over my head since. To visit soldiers who have been
injured, or anyone who is dealing with a disability that confines him or her
to a hospital bed can be emotionally draining. But it’s hard to overestimate
how important and meaningful such visits can be. Some people avoid visiting
someone who is incapacitated because they worry that they won’t know what to
say. Truth is, you probably don’t need to say much
of anything. You can be a tremendous encouragement to someone just by being
there. That’s the kind of friend John Booth
was to me. John was a young soldier from my platoon who came by to say hello
almost every day during my hospitalization in The best thing John did for me was to
write to my parents. Along with my letter of April 27, John decided to add a note of his own.
He wrote: Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Dole: I’m sure you know that
Robert is unable to write so I tried to write him a note. He told me what to
write. I know you are worrying about Robert but I wouldn’t worry too much
because there isn’t any doubt in my mind at all but [that] he will be just as
good a man when he gets well as he was before he was hurt. Just thank God it wasn’t any worse than
it was. That’s the way I feel about it. In case you want to know who I am, my
name is John Booth of As always, John That same day we learned
that the Russian Army had broken through the outer defenses of I was still in the
evacuation hospital in That same week, Jimmy
Wildman, the This was one telegram,
however, that Jimmy Wildman would have to deliver personally. The telegram,
sent on May 3, 1945, at 8:19 A.M., was, as Mom had predicted in her
letter to me, short and to the point. The Secretary of War
desires me to express his deep regret that your son, Second Lieutenant Dole,
Robert J., was seriously
wounded in J.A. Ulio,
Adjutant General That was it. For all its
good points, the army could be extremely cold and slow at times. No words of
consolation were included in the telegram. No wishes for a speedy recovery.
No details regarding how I was wounded, or how badly, or where I was being
treated. Just a blunt message that I had been seriously wounded. Fortunately, Mom and Dad
had been emotionally prepared for the telegram a week or so earlier, thanks to
John Booth’s writing my dictated letters. Pity the many parents, then and
now, who are recipients of such a jolting message from out of the blue. The battle in the Pacific
continued to rage, although everyone knew that once the Allies were able to
turn their full attention to the east, the Japanese—already weakened by
General Douglas MacArthur’s forces—wouldn’t stand a
chance. Still, I was concerned about Kenny. I knew he was over there
somewhere. Just as I had gone unscathed throughout the entire war, only to be
wounded three weeks before the Germans surrendered, I recognized that Kenny
would be in danger until the day the Japanese capitulated as well. The doctors at A few days before they shipped me out
to I forced a partial smile and went to
work, attempting to move my left arm. I struggled and strained for nearly a
minute while the doctors waited and watched patiently. Nothing. Then, as though I’d received a sudden
influx of strength from on high, I lifted my left arm a few inches off my
chest. J You’d have thought
I’d set a new world’s record in weight lifting. The doctors and the other
patients were all smiles. It was only a few inches, but it was miles up the road from where
I’d been three weeks earlier. Maybe there was hope for me after all. Despite my much-heralded achievement,
on May 16, 1945, I was prepared for the flight to At the airstrip, another
group of men lifted me from the ambulance. The springtime breezes ruffled the
sheet covering my cast, as the men hoisted me aboard the hospital plane and
strapped me in using a series of belts hanging from the plane’s walls and ceiling.
I was given another sedative prior to my departure, and the next thing I
knew, I was waking up in a hospital ward at the 70th Rumors circulated from the
start that the doctors at Dear Mom and Dad, I haven’t written in a couple of weeks,
primarily because I thought I’d be home by this time. I’m in a different
hospital now and I should be going home soon. Am feeling much better than I was when my last letter was
written. My legs are better and my left arm seems to be improving steadily. The cast I’m in is none too comfortable
but as soon as I reach home, it will be taken off There is a possibility that
I will be sent to Winter General in Love, Bob Conspicuously absent from
my letter, of course, was any mention of my shattered right arm and spinal
injury. Part of that was due to the fact that my broken bones were still
healing, and part of it was due to the fact that I could barely move my
fingers, and had almost no feeling in my right hand. I didn’t want to worry
my parents any more than necessary. Meanwhile, life in the Smoking was a newly
acquired habit. I had never really smoked prior to entering the army. Oh,
sure, I’d tried a few puffs at the fraternity house while in college, but at
KU, I was an athlete. I’d always been conscientious about taking care of my
body, while others may have lit up in naïve ignorance of the dangers of
nicotine. Life in the army made many
of us into smokers. In every package of “C” rations, I found some stew that
had to be heated over a fire, some crackers and cookies, and at the bottom a
package containing four cigarettes. At first, I wasn’t too interested in
smoking the cigarettes, so I’d give them away to my friends. But after
getting the cigarettes day after day, week after week, I finally thought, I
think I’ll try these things. They must be okay. After all, the army is giving
them to me every day. If the cigarettes weren’t good for us, the army
wouldn’t put them in our food containers. . . . I lit up a cigarette, sat
back and thought, Boy, what a life! Interestingly, my
addiction didn’t disappear just because I’d suffered a devastating blow to my
body. Quite the contrary. Lying in a hospital bed in The most immediate problem
with smoking, though, was flicking the ashes. Usually the person who lit the
cigarette for me would stick around while I smoked it. But sometimes a nurse
or soldier would light the cigarette and then walk away. Ordinarily, most
people who smoke don’t allow their cigarettes to burn all the way down; they
tap the ashes into an ashtray. But with my arms and hands not working, I had
to flick the ashes using my lips. At least once, I flicked the hot ashes
right down my neck and inside my cast. It was probably good that I wasn’t
feeling much during those days. Beyond that, it’s a wonder I didn’t set my
bed on fire. Cigarette ashes weren’t
the only things that found their way down inside my cast. I couldn’t sit up completely
to eat, so even though someone had to feed me, I’d sometimes lose part of the
food down there as well. Everything from vegetable soup to bread crumbs
seemed to find its way between the plaster and my skin. There may even have
been some bugs in there having lunch, for all I knew. Besides causing my
flesh to be itchy, with no way to be scratched, the cast began to smell
awful. Each day, it got worse. Just thinking about the fact that parts of my
body had not been washed in more than a month made my skin crawl. My
fastidious mother would have had a fit. I remained at the 70th During the first week of June, nearly
two full years to the day since I’d been called up to active duty, I received
the best news I’d heard in a long time—the army was shipping me back to
Kansas. I was going home. The plain
writing in One
Soldier’s Story can become tedious to read at times, but the story of Dole’s
courage and fight to recover from his wounds, resonates with understated clarity.
Steve Hopkins,
June 25, 2005 |
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Soldier’s Story @ amazon.com |
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ã 2005 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the July 2005
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/One
Soldier's Story.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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