Bob Dole, a former Senate majority leader and the last World War II veteran to be a major party’s presidential nominee, is being honored in a funeral at the National Cathedral on Friday. Dole died Sunday at the age of 98.
President Joe Biden is joining other national leaders and Dole’s family at the funeral at the National Cathedral. Only invited guests are attending the service, but it is being broadcast to the public.
Following the ceremony, Dole’s casket will be transferred to the national World War II Memorial on the National Lawn for a public ceremony honoring his life and service. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, Tom Hanks and Savannah Guthrie will speak, and Elizabeth Dole will lay a wreath in her husband’s honor.
Dole’s casket will then be transferred to Kansas, where a ceremony will be held in his hometown of Russell, and his body will lie in state in the Kansas state Capitol.
Dole’s body lay in state at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, and he was honored in a ceremony attended by Mr. Biden, House Speaker Nancy Speaker, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Lying in state is an honor generally reserved for high-ranking lawmakers and citizens.
The president honored Dole on Thursday as a “giant of our history.”
“We didn’t agree on everything but I always admired and respected him and his willingness to work with anyone,” said Mr. Biden, who served with Dole in the Senate.
McConnell, a fellow Republican, remembered Dole’s sense of humor, saying, “I swear Bob could have been a stand-up comic.”
Hailing from Russell, Kansas, Dole grew up during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. He was a star athlete in high school who planned to become a doctor, and he enlisted in the Army while at the University of Kansas.
Dole was badly injured in World War II, hit by a blast that ripped apart his shoulder, broke his collarbone and hit his vertebrae. He nearly died twice and lost a kidney to infection. The people of Russell, Kansas, collected money in a cigar box for his recovery. The wounds left him unable to use one arm.
He worried that he would wind up in a wheelchair selling pencils on the street, and as he later told “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl, his life became a living nightmare.
“They got me out of bed one day, and the bathroom door was open,” said Dole. “There was a mirror on the far wall on the shaving cabinet. I couldn’t believe that was Bob Dole. So I didn’t look in the mirror. I still don’t look in the mirror, except to shave.”
Dole later served in Congress for over 30 years, having first been elected to the House in 1960 and then to the Senate in 1968. He resigned his seat in 1996 to focus on his presidential campaign.
One of his signature pieces of legislation was the American with Disabilities Act, which was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990. The landmark civil rights legislation prohibited discrimination based on disability. Dole, whose maiden Senate speech in 1969 advocated for Americans with disabilities, said he considered the act one of his proudest achievements.
