The eldest of four, Bob was born July 22, 1923, to Doran and Bina (Talbott) Dole. During the Great Depression, his family moved into the basement of their small frame house and rented out the main floor. He took many odd jobs as a boy, including as a soda jerk. Graduating high school in 1941, he enrolled in the University of Kansas, earning a coveted spot on the Jayhawks' basketball team and joining the Kappa Sigma fraternity. His studies interrupted by WWII, Bob joined the Army's Enlisted Reserve Corps and was trained as an anti-tank gunner. After officer candidate training, he was appointed a Second Lieutenant in the 10th Mountain Division as platoon leader. On Apr 14, 1945, his company ran into intense enemy fire while attempting to take Hill 913 in Northern Italy. Witnessing his radioman go down, he jumped up and pulled his lifeless form into the foxhole. Jumping out again, he was hit in the back by German machine-gun fire. After waiting nine hours on the battlefield for evacuation, he was not expected to live. Extensive wounds paralyzed his right arm. Bob began his recovery at the Percy Jones General Hospital in Battle Creek, MI. It now houses federal offices and is known as the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center, named for him and two fellow disabled veterans. Twice decorated for heroism, Bob received two Purple Hearts and the Bronze Star Medal with combat 'V' for valor. Knowing the family did not have the funds, his hometown of Russell raised the money for his operations and rehabilitation. Later, clear he would never realize his boyhood dream of becoming a doctor, he set new goals to study law and give back to the people who had done so much during his four year recovery. Bob attended the University of Arizona from 1948-1951 and earned his law degree from Washburn University in 1952. With no memorial dedicated to those who served in WWII, he sought to make sure an appropriate monument was built before too many more of the 'greatest generation' passed away. As President of the WWII Memorial Commission, he was active in fundraising and building public support. He also served one term in the state legislature, four as Russell County Attorney, four in the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate from 1968-1996, was President Ford's 1976 running mate, and the 1996 Republican presidential candidate. In 1996 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. After retiring from public office, he re-entered private law practice. Dole has written several books, including one on jokes told by the Presidents of the United States, in which he ranks them according to their level of humor, and also published his biography, 'One Soldier's Story: A Memoir.' On July 22, 2003, the Bob Dole Institute of Politics was dedicated on the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence. Former Sen. Bob Dole received the Congressional Gold Medal on January 17, 2018, in recognition of his service to the nation as a 'soldier, legislator and statesman.” Although he left the Army as a captain, in 2019 Congress voted to promote Dole to Colonel in honor of his service. Bob has been married to former U.S. Senator Elizabeth Hanford Dole since 1975. During his Ike's Soldiers interview, Dole stated, 'Eisenhower was my personal hero.'

William "Bill" Dunn Sr. was attending college at Rockhurst, when Pearl Harbor happened. Two months later his father, JE Dunn, a small construction contractor won a bid to construct a Quarter Master depot in Kansas City. Bill worked on the job for $1 a day as a water boy. His father completed the contracted work with 20-hour days, 10 hours on, 10 off, his crews completed the task three days ahead of schedule. Mr. Dunn was shocked, to discover that the company made $200,000 profit. But he wouldn’t accept it. “He got in touch with government leaders and said he had no desire to make money on the war,. The government issued a change order, and JE Dunn ended up performing the work at cost. 

By then, Bill had joined the Naval reserves and was a Junior at Noter Dame. At Christmas, Bill visited his older brother, who was in the Navy, stationed at Pensacola. Bill was interested in joining and took a test and scored well and could go to the Air Corp but at the time they had plenty of recruits. So he went back and finished his Junior year at Notre Dame. That is  when he got a call from a Math instructor associated with the Air Corp. He asked Bill to teach a class on Celestia navigation, which he had no knowlege of and was trained as he was teaching it to recruits. Finally, around  ten months after passing the test to become a pilot,  Bill was called up for training, going to Memphis, TN before transferring to Pensacola. Bill was told the Military still had an abundance of pilots, as not as many were being lost in the war as expected. Half of those in the program were asked to go home or become a seaman. Bill, however, got to stay and was trained to fly a single engine, light weight plane that was called a scout plane. While the "traditional" role of scout planes was to spot enemy fleets, during World War II scout planes were essential for battleships and other surface warships during bombardment of land targets, as it was difficult to see an enemy position, even with binoculars These plans were catapulted off of air craft carriers. A catapult that ran across the beam of the ship down in the hangar bay, with big doors on each side. This way, a scout plane or two could be launched in a pinch when the top deck was fouled. These catapults were shorter and offered a quicker stroke than the upper deck systems, and the aircraft did not have the benefit of the wind blowing over deck for help to become airborne either. Even a cross wind was more usual than not. As such, it was a wild ride for crews tasked with getting airborne from the hangar deck. The scout plane catapulted was like being shot out of a cannon. Bill returned home and began working with his fathers' construction company, and eventually became the CEO. JE Dunn construction is a successful organization which is based in Kansas City. Courtesy of c-span.org/person/billdunnsr and wikipedia.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was born in Denison, TX, on October 14, 1890. The Eisenhower family returned to Kansas when he was less than two years old. Young Ike grew up in Abilene, KS, where his boyhood home stands today. Eisenhower entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY, in June 1911 and graduated with the Class of 1915. Second Lieutenant Eisenhower's first assignment was at Fort Sam Houston, TX. In the years that followed Eisenhower's duties included the Army's 1919 Transcontinental Motor Convoy, the Tank Corps, the American Battle Monuments Commission, and training recruits for World War I. In 1916, he married Mamie Geneva Doud in Denver CO. His Panama service (1922-24) introduced him to General Fox Conner who took him under his wing and encouraged him to read widely in history, military science, and philosophy and was instrumental in Eisenhower's acceptance by the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, KS. Eisenhower graduated first in the 1926 class of 245 officers. After assignments in the War Department (1929-35), he accompanied Gen. Douglas MacArthur to the Philippines as an assistant military advisor; his principal duty was training the Filipino Army. After returning to the U.S. in 1940, Ike made his reputation as a great tactician in the U.S. Army's Louisiana Maneuvers of September 1941. Following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Brig. General Eisenhower was placed in charge of plans for the Pacific Theater by Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall. Two months later, Marshall promoted him to chief of the War Plans Division where he received his second star. In June 1942, Marshall sent Eisenhower to England on a special mission to build cooperation among the Allies as Commanding General, U.S. Army, European Theater. Eisenhower arrived in England on June 24, 1942, and except for a brief stateside visit in January 1944, he was separated from his family until June 1945, following the end of the war in Europe. He served as Commanding General of Allied Forces Europe and planned and oversaw the Normandy Invasion on D-Day, June 6th, 1944. Eisenhower was promoted to 5-star rank in December 1944. He accepted the surrender of the Nazi Germany on V-E Day, May 7, 1945. General Eisenhower served as Chief of Staff of the United States Army from November 1945 until February 1948. He resigned from the Army on February 7, 1948 to serve as president of Columbia University in New York City. In 1950, at President Truman's request, Eisenhower took a leave of absence from Columbia to serve in Paris, France, as the first commanding general of the newly formed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). On June 1, 1952, Eisenhower returned to the United States to announce his candidacy President of the United States. Dwight D. Eisenhower served as our 34th President from January 1953-January 1961. Eisenhower died on March 28, 1969 and is buried in the Place of Meditation on the grounds of the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene KS.

The following is an account of what my grandfather was doing on D-day:

'Well, the day finally arrived. We loaded the trucks, hooked up the guns, we were on alert so we knew something big was about to happen and it did!! D-day on Utah Beach on the Normandy Coast of France....We came to Utah Beach where there were a lot of ships sunk in the water but we had cleared out channels to make it to shore. They opened the front doors and we drove out on the beach to an area away form the water to wait for our connection with the 4th Infantry Division, which we were to be attached to and our battery was to guard 20th Field artillery which were 155 Howitzers. As it got dark the German planes began to fly over, we were instructed not to fire on them unless our area was being attacked. We were only a few miles from the beach and it was quite a display of fire works going on there. All the tracers going in to the air looked like a long fountain boiling up. The night was quiet for a little while except for some artillery firing and occasional rifle or machine gun fire. Then a lone plane came flying over, I guess he wanted to get rid of his load in a hurry and get out of the area for the next thing I heard was a quick whoosh a bang went off on the other side of the hedgerow, throwing dirt and rock all around us. Boy, that sure livened us up and put some pep into our fox hole digging. It wasn't very long until another plane came flying but higher up. The 90mm guns started firing at it and soon a burst set the plane on fire. If you don't think looking up in the sky at night and seeing a big ball of fire coming down on you won't get you on the move...it does!!! I dove into a fox hole and two more bodies landed on top of me. The plane crashed a couple hundred yards away from me. So much for my first night on French soil.' Battery B 377th Antiaircraft Artillery AW Battalion -was linked with the 4th Infantry. Decorations and Campaigns: Normandy GO 33 WD 45,Rhineland Ardennes GO 40 WD 45, Northern France GO 46 WD 45 and Central Europe GO 48 WD 45 Decorations and Citations: Good Conduct Medal, EAME Theater Ribbon and One Silver Service Star, World War II Victory Ribbon,Purple Heart GO 15 Hq 171st Sta Hosp 44, and American Theater Ribbon. Honorably Discharged and determined to be 10% disabled due to a gunshot would of thigh. Wound received EAME Theater 29 July 44.

Entering the service in New York at the age of 20, Louis Graziano's World War II experiences include landing with the third wave on D-Day on Omaha Beach, fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, and serving on Dwight D. Eisenhower’s staff at Reims, France, when Germany surrendered. 'I was a hair stylist before I went into the service,' Graziano said. 'Then when I came out, I went back to hair styling. I’m still working. I’ve been there since 1956.' His children wanted to know about his war experiences, so he wrote 'A Patriot's Memoirs of World War II: Through My Eyes, Heart, and Soul.' His book shares stories of life, loss and love. He met his wife, a fellow soldier, while in the service. 'As we focus on our country today, we must look back to our history to help us appreciate how we became the greatest power on earth and the men and women who fought to make this happen,' says Graziano. When his unit arrived in Reims, France, Graziano was charged with keeping all of the buildings occupied by Americans in working order. Among those structures was the Little Red Schoolhouse, and that’s how he got into the war room to watch the German commanders surrender. In 2019, 75 years later, Graziano was believed to be the last living eyewitness to the formal surrender of Germany at the schoolhouse in Reims. Of that monumental moment in history on May 7, 1945, Graziano has said, 'I was honored. It was a great pleasure to be there. I felt sorry for all the men we had lost that helped us accomplish that.' In June 2019, he spoke at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library during events commemorating the 75th anniversary of the June 6, 1944, D-Day Invasion of Normandy. Graziano was even honored at the White House in October of 2019, at the age of 96. Role(s) in Service Utilities-NCO Sergeant. Supervised 35 men in plumbing, carpentry, electrical work, masonry, road building and construction work. Built large mess hall, sleeping huts, latrines, roads, sidewalks, power plant and a theater. Col. Boshoff sent Louis to install a telephone line in Ike’s quarters. Louis took his friend, Buck, stringing wire through towns and through fields, watching for mines. They spent two nights at Eisenhower's Headquarters. 'We got everything hooked up for Eisenhower. He was real good to us. I think a lot of him. He was real good; kind to the men. He was always looking out for the soldiers. He said ‘The officers have enough rank to look after themselves, so I take care of the enlisted men.’'

Wendell DeMand Gugler. I was inducted into the Army on July 23, 1943, after having graduated from Abilene (Kansas) High School that spring. Since I had volunteered for the ski troops through the National Ski Patrol Association in New York City, I was immediately assigned to Company E of the 85th Mountain Infantry at Camp Hale, Colorado. Camp Hale was situated at 9,000 feet in the Pando Valley, and was surrounded by mountains ranging up to 14,000 feet. The first several weeks were spent in basic training. Then our mountaineering began which included proper walking, hiking, camping, rock climbing and rappelling. Hiking was done with a ninety pound rucksack and rifle, and when the snow came we added long wooden cross country skis and poles. In June, 1944, the 10th Mountain Division, composed of the 85th, 86th, and 87th Mountain Infantry Regiment and supporting units, was sent to Camp Swift, near Austin, Texas. There the Division added some heavier weapons and we had some 'Flat-land' training and training with Army mules. In December, 1944, the Division was transferred to Virginia where we boarded a ship bound for Naples, Italy. My unit boarded LCI craft for a shorter voyage to Leghorn. The Allied advance had been stalled by German troops who were entrenched in the Apennine Mountains. In the area to which the 10th Mountain was assigned, Mount Belvedere overlooked Highway 64, one of the primary highways between Florence and Bologna. German artillery on Mount Belvedere and a series of peaks named Riva Ridge blocked traffic on the highway. Four other divisions had been unable to dislodge the Germans. Using our mountain training, we took Belvedere on February 19,1945, by sending a battalion of men from the 86th up to the 1500 foot Riva Ridge on ropes, surprising the Germans while other units made frontal assaults. We led the Allies through the remaining Apennines and through the PO Valley, ending in the Italian Alps around Lake Garda. On May 2, 1945, the Germans in Italy surrendered. In 114 days of combat, 992 mountaineers had lost their lives; 4154 were wounded. The 10th Mountain was then sent to occupy the area around Udine to protect it from Yugoslavian troops. In July the 10th was ordered back to the United States for further training in preparation for the invasion of Japan. On August 14, 1945, I walked in the door of my parents' home as President Truman announced the unconditional surrender of Japan. I was honorably discharged on February 8, 1946, after spending my entire wartime service in Company E. I received awards including a Combat Infantry Badge and two Battle Stars.

Donald E. Hollenbeck graduated from high school in February 1943 and entered into the army the following month. He was in basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky and was then sent overseas to Belgium until his death in December 1944. His unit was stationed in Trois Ponts, Belgium where a bridge leading to another major town was located. The German troops were eager to cross this bridge and take control of both major towns along the route. One of the American guns that was defending the area got stuck along the route and Hollenbeck's unit commander ordered that he and the other three men that were in control of the gun stay behind until the bridge route was completely demolished and cut off from the Germans. Hollenbeck and his compatriots knew that they were on a suicide mission and after fifteen minutes of holding off the German troops, an explosion occurred behind the four-man gun crew destroying the bridge along with the gun. Hollenbeck and the other three men were killed in the explosion that stopped the Germans from pursuing the way forward through Trois Ponts.

Harry Hudec enlisted in the Army on October 24, 1942 at age 20. He served with the 82nd Airborne Division, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Operation Neptune was an important phase of Overlord, the name given to the D-Day invasion. The 82nd Airborne was an integral part of Operation Neptune. The 82nd's mission was to destroy vital German supply ridges and capture causeways leading inland across the flooded areas behind the Normandy beaches where seaborn forces would land to gain control of roads and communications. More than 10,000 All-Americans landed by parachute and glider on June 6, 1944 as part of the greatest airborne assault in History. Heduc jumped into Normandy on D-Day around 1:30 am and fought on HiIl 30 between Chef du Pont and Picauville. On June 15th, he suffered a combat injury and was hidden and cared for by a local family over 4 days until the arrival of German troops. Hudec was hospitalized to remove the hand grenade fragments from his injury. He returned to service an went on to jump into Holland as part of Operation Market Garden and also fought in the Battle of the Bulge. After the war Hudec returned to Cleveland and married, had three children and retired from the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co after 43 years. Courtesy of WW II uncovered.