[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 85 (Tuesday, June 11, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S6076]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          TRIBUTE TO BOB DOLE

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Madam President, I will take just a couple of minutes 
beyond that which was allocated to me by the Senator from Nebraska to 
say that I, too, listened very intently to Senator Dole's remarks 
today. I was touched and moved by them.
  I will not go into his record, and I will not go to any length, but I 
want to say that Bob Dole is someone whom I have admired over the 
years, with whom I have worked very smoothly. When he said it, he meant 
it. When he meant it, he said it. That is the way he operated.
  He is part of a generation, of which I also am, and that is the 
generation of World War II veterans, a dwindling group, I regret to 
say. This year we will see several leave because, in addition to 
Senator Bob Dole, Senator Hatfield, and Senator Heflin will leave, and 
the group tightens and shrinks. It is not a very pleasant prospect to 
contemplate. But, nevertheless, it is a decided loss to take away the 
experience, the knowledge, the reflection of those who served in World 
War II at a time when America was a much different place, at a time 
when the values were established by tightly knit families, by those who 
worried about the loss of a loved one or the injury of a family member 
in the war. It was a huge war with somewhere around 14, 15 million 
people from our country in uniform. It touched every family in America. 
There was not a family that did not have close contact with that war.
  We were also the generation that benefited enormously--enormously--
from an educational program called the GI bill that was afforded to 
people like me and many others who serve here, where it changed our 
lives. The military experience was one thing. I served in World War II, 
not under the same level of danger that Senator Dole or Senator Inouye 
served, but people in my unit were killed. It changed our lives because 
of the experience of the war, the fear, the danger, the detachment from 
family. When I enlisted in World War II, my father was already on his 
death bed, a man of just 43 years of age. And a family of four became a 
family of two virtually overnight.
  But the experience of serving my country, the opportunity to do so, 
the opportunity to get an education, is something that ought to be 
firmly implanted in everybody's mind in this place and in this 
country, where an education can change one's life, as it did, I know 
for so many of my colleagues. Certainly, it did for me.

  Without giving a personal biography, that is not my intent, just to 
say that we will miss Bob Dole. We will miss his experience and we will 
miss his wisdom. I wish him well--not quite as well as the Senator from 
New Hampshire, but that is in terms of the upcoming Presidential 
election--I wish him, personally, well and I wish him and his family 
many good years of enjoyment and good health.

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