Dole Visits Room Where His Wounds Healed

Bob Dole came home Thursday to the room where he fought back from the edge of death, where he learned how to live again, and where in the long empty days he first thought about public service.

“I learned a lot about myself and a lot about other people,” Dole said as he paced the sun-drenched room where he spent more than two years recovering from the World War II wounds that almost cost him his life.

He had been back only once before, two years ago, but could not find the actual room in the 15-story yellow brick building that was converted long ago from a hospital into government offices.

Then, when he learned three days ago that blueprints used in a current remodeling pinpointed the room, he abruptly canceled plans to visit Kalamazoo and decided to come here instead.

“He was rather emotional about coming,” said his spokesman, Nelson Warfield.

As he travels around the country in search of the presidency, Dole has been turning his campaign into a tour of his life. In New York and Florida, he talked about trips there as a young soldier on his way to the war. In Arizona, he recalled his days at the University of Arizona. Here, he talked about life after the war.

The recollections, of course, are a way of making a connection to voters in these various states, something he notes that then Vice President George Bush did in his 1988 campaign when remembering all the states he once called home.

But Dole also is painting a portrait of his character, of a man who sacrificed for his country, who fought his way back. It is a portrait, he believes, that offers a tempting contrast to President Clinton.

“It is about character,” he said while walking about the former hospital room. “It is about growing up in America, about knowing America, about knowing what made America great, about having made a little sacrifice for America.”

It was in that ward, in Bed 5, where the young Dole teetered near death, then slowly recovered from the wound that cost him the use of his right arm and severely limited use of his left. He was there from November 1945 to July 1948, leaving occasionally for surgery in Chicago or recuperation at home in Russell, Kan.

“I was very sick here,” Dole said without a hint of emotion.

He recalled how his parents came to visit him, how his father was unnerved when squirrels invaded his room in a nearby hotel, how he lay day after day felling despondent.

“You go through a period of ‘Why Me?,”’ he said.

He remembered how he had to learn to depend on others to do the most basic chores.

“I couldn’t get dressed, or a lot of other things,” he said.

But even then Dole’s wit shown through. Nurses moved him around to other wards, he said, because he would make other patients laugh.