MY SAY: THEY ALSO SERVED IN WAR AND IN THE SENATE
PLEASE READ BELOW ABOUT SENATOR JEREMIAH DENTON (R-ALABAMA) WHO DIED IN 2014
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D-ILLINOIS)- An Iraq War veteran, Duckworth served as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot and suffered severe combat wounds, losing both of her legs and damaging her right arm. Having received a medical waiver, she continued to serve as a lieutenant colonel in the Illinois Army National Guard along with her husband, Major Bryan W. Bowlsbey, a signal officer and fellow Iraq War veteran, until her retirement from the Army in October 2014.
SENATOR ROBERT DOLE (R-KANSAS)- represented Kansas in Congress from 1961 to 1996 and served as the Republican Leader of the United States Senate from 1985 until 1996. He was the Republican presidential nominee in the 1996 presidential election and the party’s vice presidential nominee in the 1976 presidential election. He served with distinction in World War 2. In 1942, Dole joined the United States Army’s Enlisted Reserve Corps to fight in World War II, becoming a second lieutenant in the Army’s 10th Mountain Division. In April 1945, while engaged in combat near Castel d’Aiano in the Apennine mountains southwest of Bologna, Italy, Dole was badly wounded by German machine gun fire, being hit in his upper back and right arm. As Lee Sandlin describes, when fellow soldiers saw the extent of his injuries, all they thought they could do was to “give him the largest dose of morphine they dared and write an ‘M’ for ‘morphine’ on his forehead in his own blood, so that nobody else who found him would give him a second, fatal dose.”
SENATOR JOSEPH CLELAND (D-GEORGIA 1997-2003) is a disabled US Army veteran of the Vietnam War, a recipient of the Silver Star and the Bronze Star for valorous actions in combat, and a former United States Senator.
On April 8, with a month left in his tour, Cleland was ordered to set up a radio relay station on a nearby hill. A helicopter flew him and two soldiers to the treeless top of Hill 471, east of Khe Sanh. Cleland knew some of the soldiers camped there from Operation Pegasus. He told the pilot he was going to stay a while with friends.When the helicopter landed, Cleland jumped out, followed by the two soldiers. They ducked beneath the rotors and turned to watch the liftoff. Cleland reached down to pick up a grenade that he believed had popped off his flak jacket. It exploded and the blast slammed him backward, shredding both his legs and one arm.
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