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Former Sen. Bob Dole’s passing and the 80th anniversary of Pearl Harbor brought to mind lessons his generation bequeathed to those of us who knew them. Like Dole, my father served as an Army officer in Italy during World War II. Fortunately, as an ordnance specialist, he drew duty in an operations base near Naples and avoided the bloody combat that wounded Dole for life.

Yet, the stories that my dad and mother told of those frightening days bolster me in these uncertain times. At the height of their courtship in 1941, they endured my dad’s conscription into the Army a few days before Pearl Harbor. While they hated to part, for my father, whose family had suffered the loss of their home during the Great Depression, “the War,” as they would always refer to the second global conflagration in their lifetime, offered opportunities for education and travel he never could have achieved in civilian life. Lesson 1: Find something beneficial even in the most turbulent times.

Spared assignment to the infantry by scoring well on a battery of tests at the induction center, Dad shipped off to basic training and then Officer Candidate School at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. After completing OCS, he knew he had enough pay to support marriage, so he phoned the love of his life to propose. On a brief leave in November 1942, he raced home for the nuptials. Over their 62 years of marriage, Mother occasionally would bring out linens or a ceramic plate to show me and remark that, because of “the War’s” shortages, these represented their only wedding gifts.

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