The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette‘s David M. Shribman has the tale of letters from a certain World War II soldier, letters that are just now surfacing.
The sad thing about our time is that war letters have become a genre. We’ve all read them. They’re in books, they’re online. They’re also in our own homes. In this country, in this age, is there a family that does not have a file of letters from a soldier, sailor or aviator tucked away in the closet or the attic? In some of our homes, those files get thicker every day.
Right now there’s a new set of war letters circulating. Not exactly new, it turns out; they’ve been around for 60 years. But almost nobody knew about them, including the fellow who wrote them. They have been hidden away, until now.
They are the war letters of an Army grunt named Robert Joseph Dole, and the people who first looked through the trove inevitably described them as “extraordinary.” But they aren’t extraordinary at all. They’re ordinary, which in the end makes them even more extraordinary.
Yes, that Robert Dole. Former senator, vice-presidential and presidential candidate.
Go read more about the words from the pen of a great man, and how those words are just now reaching the public as the man confronts adversity again.