Dole says he has met “thousands” of visitors to the war memorial. Dole: WWII generation's man in D.C.

On any given Saturday, a visitor to Washington’s National Mall can count on seeing a familiar set of monuments, throngs of shutterbug tourists and perhaps a few cherry blossoms, depending on the season.


There’s also a good chance they’ll see Bob Dole.

At nearly 91 years of age, the former presidential candidate and Senate majority leader treks to the World War II Memorial nearly every weekend to greet his fellow veterans (“every Saturday and some Wednesdays,” according to Dole.) The longtime advocate for veterans’ causes remains tightly bonded to the generation that fought with him in Europe, and across the world in the Pacific.

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In an extended interview ahead of the D-Day anniversary on June 6, Dole shared his reflections on the World War II generation, the state of politics in Washington and his own plans to barnstorm across Kansas throughout the summer of 2014.

And he sized up Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden as national candidates, weighed in on the changing gay marriage debate and predicted the 2016 Republican nominee would be a figure America hasn’t yet been introduced to. He initially defended Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki’s performance in the job and later issued a statement on Shinseki’s resignation, lamenting that the country had “lost the leadership of an American war hero who served his country with commitment and courage.”

Dole, who sustained disabling wounds during his service in Italy, said he rarely thinks of his own war experience. But, alluding to the permanent injury to his right arm, he added: “I’m reminded every day when I try to get dressed, you know. I don’t think about what happened, but I obviously have a daily reminder.”

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The 1996 presidential nominee said he has met “thousands” of visitors at the war memorial, including “160-some different groups.” “All I do is welcome them to the memorial, and they want to shake hands and maybe get a picture. We talk about where they’re from and what branch of service they’re in,” Dole said. “Each state has a pillar, and they’ll go to their state and have a flag service and then a prayer service.”

“It’s a very emotional trip for these 89-, 90- and 100-year-old vets — these tough old guys. There are a lot of tears shed,” Dole said.

His generation of veterans, Dole said, is “the disappearing generation.” “We’ve gone from 16-and-a-half million to about 2 million and we lose hundreds every day,” he said. Their ranks are diminished on Capitol Hill as well: Michigan Rep. John Dingell, who is retiring this year, and Texas Rep. Ralph Hall, who lost a primary last month, are the last remaining veterans of the war in office.

Dole shared reflections on a wide range of issues, including:

* Whether age is a fair issue in presidential elections: Fair or not, Dole said the subject is as in-bounds for the 2016 Democratic field as it was for him in 1996, when he ran at the age of 73. “We had signs, ‘Dole in ’96,’ and the Democrats in some areas changed it to ‘Dole is ’96,’” he recalled. “Hillary will be, what, 69? Age can be a factor. I think it was in my race, and it’ll be in hers.”

* His own decision to resign from the Senate in 1996: Dole said he never regrets his choice to step down amid the campaign – or only “rarely, not really.” But he admitted to missing the day-to-day give and take of the Capitol, at least on occasion. “Oh, you know, I kind of miss that. When I’m in the office and there’s something red-hot going on in Congress,” Dole said. “I don’t say it was fun, but it was interesting to be, sort of, in the eye of the storm.” Upon further reflection, he allowed: “Yeah, I miss that.”

* Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden: “Do I think she’d be tough?” Dole asked. “I think, with Bill’s help – he did a pretty decent job. In fact, he did a job on me.” For Biden, he has warmer words and a fond memory. “We’re great friends,” Dole said.

“We served with each other in the Senate and the day I left the Senate on June 16, 1996, he passed me a note on the way out as I was leaving the floor. And it just said: ‘Good luck, signed, Joe.’ Now, I’m sure he didn’t mean he was gonna go out and campaign for me or vote for me, but he was wishing me good luck, which I thought was very nice of him.”

* His advice for the Republican field: The main thing, Dole said, is to stand for something. “You’ve got to have a program. You can’t say, ‘I’m against this and this and this.’ You better be for health care in some form, energy, immigration — key issues,” he said. Without naming names, he questioned whether some of the fresher-faced potential candidates in the U.S. Senate were really ready to run. “I mean, they just arrived on the scene,” Dole said. “They haven’t even — well, I guess they’ve unpacked, but I don’t know. Maybe one of them will come to the forefront.”

* Jeb Bush’s national appeal: Noting that he’s not close with the former Florida governor personally, Dole said he would bring a lot to the GOP ticket. “We need to get a bigger share of the Latino vote. He’s married to a [Latina] and speaks Spanish fluently and I think would make deep inroads in the Hispanic community.”

* Gay marriage: While he said he cannot think of a major issue on which his views have changed since leaving office, Dole said he was untroubled by the changing tide of opinion in favor of same-sex marriage. “Well, I’m from the old school where I thought marriage was between a man and a woman,” he said. “But again, I’m a tolerant person, so I’ll go along with the flow.”

* The debate over plans for a Dwight Eisenhower memorial: Dole, who has described “Ike” as his favorite president and served under Eisenhower in Europe, shrugged at the multi-round dispute between members of the Eisenhower family and the designers of a memorial to the general who supervised the D-Day invasion. “I think there been been some revisions that I’ve not seen,” Dole said. “I thought [the first version] was fine, but I’m not a member of the Eisenhower family, and I think they may have had some suggested changes.”

Though Dole ran his last race nearly two decades ago, the former senator shows no signs of giving up the political game in his winter years. He continues to push for an international disabilities treaty, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, that previously failed in the Senate.

He met in May with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power (“She’s a great help. She’s very popular with all the members”) and said he continues to lean on his former colleagues, including Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts, who voted against the measure the first time around.

And he is currently preparing to make his fourth trip to Kansas this year, a four-day, 14-stop swing next week that’s the latest installment of Dole’s ongoing thank-you tour in his native state. “When you’re 90 years old, you don’t want to miss any opportunities and I felt, since I was in pretty good health except for my right knee, that this might be a time to visit Kansas,” Dole said. “Hopefully not for the last time, just to ensure that I do it this time.”

Dole anticipates a triumphant event this summer in his hometown of Russell, where he grew up in the throes of the Great Depression and where his neighbors took up a collection in a cigar box to help him after the war.

“We’re kind of saving Russell for when my wife can go with me and when I can spend a whole day,” he said. “I lost both my sisters last July and my brother about 10 years ago, so I’m the last one standing.”

Dole continued: “I imagine a lot of people are going to show up. Of course, a lot of my supporters have gotten older. I don’t know why, but I guess the years do pass.”