>> Funding for this program provided by... TriWest Healthcare Alliance.

>> Can looking back push us forward?

>> Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Billie Holiday.

>> Will our voice be heard through time?

Can our past inspire our future?

>> ...massive act of concern.

♪♪ >> Additional support for this film is provided by... and Witness to War -- preserving the oral histories of combat veterans.

♪♪ >> Just south of Florence, Italy, covering 70 acres, is the final resting place for over 4,000 Americans who never returned home from World War II.

Nearby, over 1,400 names are engraved on the Wall of the Missing, their bodies never found.

Many young men and boys who lie under these white crosses and Stars of David at the Florence American Cemetery died not far away in heavy fighting in the rugged Northern Apennine Mountains.

They were killed just weeks before the end of the fighting in Europe.

These Americans never fulfilled their potential.

Would one of them gone on to cure a rare disease?

Would they have led the fight for equality?

Would just one have made the world a better place?

Here, these questions remain unanswered.

♪♪ 16 million Americans served in the armed forces during World War II, including one young soldier whose life was dramatically changed in the unforgiving mountains of Italy.

♪♪ ♪♪ Historian Gabriele Ronchetti navigates through curvy mountain roads roughly two hours north of Florence.

It's a trip Gabriele has taken countless times before.

A journey back in time to the spring of 1945.

During the final weeks of World War II, American and German soldiers were scattered all over this region.

The Germans had dug into the high ground here and were not ready to give it up.

Ronchetti will tell you that this part of Italy looks much the same today as it has for hundreds of years.

Small villages dot the landscape surrounded by lush, green farmland.

The people in this region maintain close family ties.

They honor the generations that came before them and celebrate the area's rich history.

For Gabriele, that history includes a battle just a short drive from the small town of Castel d'Aiano.

A savage battle played out at a location designated on military maps as Hill 913.

During the last weeks of World War II, the Americans, including a young second lieutenant named Bob Dole, went on the offensive to break through German lines.

>> It's very important, because remembering what happened, remembering the memory -- it's the best antidote to future wars.

To maintain peace, we've got to understand the war.

>> The fight here in the Castel d'Aiano region in 1945 was not that different from the rest of the struggle in Italy in World War II.

From the time the Allies landed on the beaches of Salerno in the summer of 1943, each day after that was defined by stubborn German resistance.

The battles were fought up steep Italian mountains and ridges and across wide, flat valleys.

The Germans always held the high ground in Italy.

They could observe every movement, and in war, that's everything -- the high ground.

The unrelenting Italian front would ultimately be a fight without a finish.

>> It was one continuous battle.

This lasted 2 1/2 years.

So it was always -- There was no conclusion.

So I think that's one thing that is a problem with Americans who envision this, because there was no end date, no victory, no putting a flag up in some location.

If you look at a map of Italy, we have a mountain range in the center of Italy, going from the boot all the way up to the Alps.

So the whole country basically is going from one mountain range to another, from a valley to a high point.

The Germans had the high grounds all the time.

The American, the Allies were always looking up.

>> Bob Dole was attending Kansas University when he decided the Army and basic training was his best military option.

>> I never -- I always thought being in the Navy and being up in the air in the Air Force 20,000 feet -- I always thought we were on the ground, and we had a chance to duck and dodge and find some safe haven somewhere.

>> Dole would eventually be selected for Officer Candidate School and be branded a 90-day wonder.

The war had taken a toll on American leaders in combat, so the government had set up training schools where, in three months, someone like Dole could emerge as a junior officer.

The government didn't emphasize in its recruiting posters that the incredibly high casualty rate of officers, especially in Italy, was the main reason for the sped-up training.

>> In 90 days, you could become a second lieutenant.

And I remember going home with, you know, my dress uniform on and feeling, you know, kind of proud of myself that I'd made it.

>> Bob Dole, one of four children in the Dole family, was born in Russell, Kansas, in 1923.

He grew up during the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s.

>> Though we lived in a great little town, Russell, Kansas.

I'm sure everyone's hometown is pretty much the same.

You know, people kind of look after you.

>> Dole had always been a great athlete in high school, but at Kansas, it was more about staying fit and having fun for the now-6'2" freshman.

>> Well, I wasn't good enough in either football or basketball to make the big team.

We had a lot of fun in freshmen basketball.

And track.

I loved track, too.

I liked to run the 1/4-mile and the 220-yard dash.

>> Bob Dole enlisted in the Army in 1942 and was called to active service the following year.

Dole eventually graduated from Officer Candidate School in late 1944.

Not too long after, the 21-year-old newly minted second lieutenant left for Europe on a troop transport with thousands of other replacements, his destination still unknown.

>> December 9, 1944.

Dear folks, I told you in my last letter that I would try to write again before leaving.

We are aboard ship now.

Can't say where or when we were boarded.

[ Foghorn blows ] >> Dole's trip across the Atlantic was uneventful.

There wasn't much to write home about for a young man from the heartland who was at sea for the first time.

Still, Bob Dole enjoyed writing letters.

Lots of letters.

>> December 19, 1944.

Dear Mom, Dad, I wrote last night, and nothing has happened since, but I know that you feel better when you hear from your sons in the service.

So I'll write as often as possible.

Every day, we get a little closer to our destination, and I'll be glad to get my feet on the ground again, even though I do sort of like the ship I'm on.

>> While at sea, Dole and the others aboard their troop transport were told their destination was Italy.

Dole also realized why so many other 90-day wonders were along for the ride.

Bob Dole and those aboard his transport ship arrived at Naples, Italy, a few days before Christmas 1944.

Dole was assigned to a replacement depot outside of the historic Italian capital of Rome.

He waited for assignment to wherever the war needed him most.

In Italy, that location would be the mountains in the country's northern region, where the heavy fighting was ongoing.

Junior officers were most needed in the famed 10th Mountain Division.

The 10th had famously been on skis earlier in the war, but were also proven mountain fighters.

Bob Dole had none of these skills, but the division had been decimated in 1944 and '45.

So the 10th needed replacement junior officers to lead squads and platoons in combat.

>> They needed second lieutenants.

Second lieutenants were getting hit pretty hard because they're out in front, and the Germans, I think, had a penchant for picking off second lieutenants or officers.

You're generally carrying a carbine rather than an M1 rifle, so they can spot you.

>> January 2, 1945.

Dear folks, I haven't written for three days, so here goes my first letter of 1945.

Hope you all had a happy New Year.

We had turkey for dinner.

There wasn't much, but what there was was good.

It's a little colder here than it was at my old station.

We have a stove in our tents, so we keep pretty warm most of the time.

I visited Florence since I arrived.

It really is pretty nice, since it hasn't been bombed much.

Good night.

Love, Bob.

P.S., keep your fingers crossed."

>> In early 1945, the 10th Mountain Division was coming off victorious-but-costly battles at places called Riva Ridge, a sheer cliff, and Mount Belvedere, one of the highest peaks in Northern Italy.

Both were heroic and violent attacks where determined Germans were forced from the high ground.

American casualties were high.

Before their next fight, new replacements were needed in the 10th.

That battle would come outside Gabriele Ronchetti's hometown of Castel d'Aiano.

Bob Dole and the other replacements arrived from Rome and entered the Northern Apennine Mountains meat grinder in February 1945.

None of the soldiers had ever seen combat.

Dole was assigned to lead the 2nd Platoon of I Company, 3rd Battalion, 85th Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division.

>> I felt kind of intimidated.

And, you know, second lieutenants were expendable.

There were three in my regiment who were killed.

>> Italian historian Gabriele Ronchetti walks in the footsteps of the 10th Mountain Division whenever he gets the chance.

Ronchetti belongs to the 10th Mountain Division Association and knows these hills as well as anyone.

He has studied the story of the famed 10th Mountain Division in Italy and Bob Dole's journey in World War II.

>> Bob Dole arrived here at the end of February 1945.

He was just a substitute platoon commander.

He was substituting a platoon commander who was killed in action.

He was commanding the rifle platoon of the 85th Company.

>> Everybody's an optimist.

No one really believes they're ever going to be killed.

>> The 10th Mountain Division was the only mountain division the Army had ever had, and it was an experimental division.

They really didn't know what to do with us.

Actually, the enlisted men were much better acquainted with mountaineering and skiing than the officers.

>> March 13, 1945.

Dear folks, I hope you haven't worried too much because you haven't received any mail from me.

I'm a combat soldier now, folks.

I suppose you've been reading about the 10th Mountain Division in the paper the last few weeks.

We've really done some pretty good work so far, and I hope we can continue to do as well.

I'm feeling better than ever so far.

I guess this outdoor life agrees with me.

Love, Bob.

>> "Outdoor life" was an ambiguous way of explaining his current situation to his concerned parents in Kansas.

The fighting in April of 1945 in this part of Northern Italy was beyond brutal, both physically and mentally.

That's why the fighting in this region of Italy, described by military planners as the German defensive, or Gothic Line, was assigned to the veteran 10th Mountain Division.

Bob Dole, for one, was never trained on skis or climbing.

He would learn mountain fighting on the job.

The 10th had to break the mountainous German defensive lines again and again.

It wouldn't be a fight that brought big headlines in the American newspapers.

Over a million American troops were battling in the region, as was the case since 1943.

The Americans were trying to push the Germans north and eventually out of Italy, one mountain, ridge, hill, or valley at a time.

>> You're up on the peak of one mountain.

You look across, you see a valley, then you have to look up, and you say, "That's a mountain I have to climb again."

So they're going up.

The 10th Mountain Division, which is a very famous division, fought here.

They were trained for mountain warfare.

So the terrain caused the American military to rethink how to fight this war, because it was not the flat plains of Northern Europe, where it's easy for a tank to roll.

This was not.

It was difficult for mules to go, let alone a vehicle.

>> I think Churchill or Roosevelt dubbed it sort of the forgotten front, but it was still an important front.

And it had this Gothic Line, which extended across Italy and where they occupied all the high ground.

And, of course, they weren't gonna let anybody penetrate it.

>> March 21, 1945.

Dear Mom, Dad, not much going on today, so I'll try to finish the V-mail before anything happens.

When I'm not in my foxhole, ducking German artillery, I'm generally on night patrol or trying to catch some sleep.

I'm pretty dirty right now.

I haven't showered or washed for several days, but I guess it won't hurt me any.

I can't see why the Jerries won't give up.

But I'm just a second lieutenant who doesn't know too much about the big picture.

Tell everyone hello for me, and I'll write as soon as possible.

Good night.

Love, Bob."

>> Exhausted by the never-ending fighting in Italy, some Germans gave up in early 1945 in the Castel d'Aiano area.

>> Some of the German soldiers that were dislocated not on top of the hill, but, you know, hiding in houses or around the area -- they were made prisoners by the Americans who were patrolling the area.

They just surrendered as soon as they saw the Americans going toward them.

Most of the German soldiers couldn't wait to surrender because they were tired of the war.

So most of them were made prisoners during the patrolling of the bottom of the valley.

>> April 7, 1945.

Hi, son.

Have wanted to write you all week.

We are all okay.

The kids are really growing.

By the way, what do you plan to do when this war is over?

Go back to school or what?

I could probably get you a job here, if you'd be interested.

Think it over.

Love, Mom."

>> On April 12, 1945, American President Franklin D. Roosevelt died during his fourth term in office.

>> We weren't Democrats or Republicans.

You know, we weren't -- May have been one or two misguided ones in the group, but most of us were neutral on politics.

But we knew FDR was our president.

And we knew he was our real commander.

And, you know, we shed some tears, even though we never met him.

>> Fabrizio Mantica is also a 10th Mountain Division Association member and sometimes visits this area with fellow Italian historian Gabriele Ronchetti.

Mantica also grew up around the Castel d'Aiano area, hearing stories from family who recalled bracing for the oncoming battle.

In the spring of 1945, the Germans were still dug in in the nearby ridges and the town itself.

Fabrizio says the locals were aware that Americans were getting closer.

Liberation wasn't far away.

>> My grandma used to tell me, during the war, when the Germans were firing all around the area, at one point, a bomb got the chimney on top of the roof, and it made a crack in the house, and the building was, you know, split in two.

And they were very scared.

>> In early April of 1945, two distinctive ridgelines defined the area outside Castel d'Aiano.

The hills would be the location of the fight in this region involving Bob Dole and the 10th Mountain Division.

3,000-foot Monte della Spe sat on one side, and less than a mile away, the Germans had dug into 1,000-foot Hill 913.

>> The mountains up in the Tuscany region is extremely high.

You're talking about elevation between 2,000, 5,000 feet, and it was a difficult terrain for him to fight in.

And so a lot of these people took enormous casualties here.

>> Today, Monte della Spe is covered in trees.

Below the ridge is an open, flat, grassy field separating the mountain and Hill 913.

Hill 913 is also, today, a dense forest, unlike during the war, when both peaks were barren and mostly devoid of vegetation.

Early in March of 1945, Monte della Spe was still in the hands of the Germans.

That was until the 10th Mountain Division pushed the enemy off this ridge, forcing them onto the top of nearby Hill 913.

>> On the 5th of March 1945, the 87th entered Castel d'Aiano, where there were no German soldiers left, while the 85th Regiment, Bob Dole's regiment -- they climbed up on the side of the hill and took Monte della Spe.

And once on top, the American regiments took possession of all the trenches and bunkers and foxholes left by the Germans.

So it was completely free from German soldier the following day.

>> The fleeing Germans entrenched themselves on Hill 913, which would be the next high point the Americans would have to take along the Gothic Line.

However, this time, the Americans and Germans weren't in any rush for an all-out battle.

Both sides waited and watched, like two boxers sizing each other up, the Americans on Monte della Spe and the Germans on nearby Hill 913.

>> They stood there for 40 days, until the 14th of April.

Here, on Hill 913, there were the Germans.

They could look at each other.

>> Everybody was scared.

If they tell you they weren't scared, there's something wrong with them.

And they wanted to get back home.

They want to see their children and their wife, their mother, their father.

>> On Monte della Spe and, later, Hill 913, the Germans had set up a sophisticated system of trenches and protective shelters.

Still visible today, Gabriele Ronchetti marvels at German ingenuity.

These fortifications were built so well that German soldiers could withstand almost any American bombardment.

>> These are the walkways from the shelters that took the German soldiers from the shelters down on the north slope up here to the bigger trenches.

This is a German shelter situated on the north slope of the hill, protecting from the American fire.

This is where the soldiers could get a rest and, you know, have a nap after they were on the trenches on top, fighting.

That's the entrance.

Yeah, it was all covered.

Sort of a roof made of logs and branches and stones, as well, and then covered with leaves.

Germans are well-known to do things all the same, standardize.

It's easy to spot a German shelter, because after the trenches, there's a walkway that leads to the shelters.

>> On his climbs, Ronchetti encounters many foxholes hastily built by the Americans in the spring of 1945.

Being above ground and exposed during any shelling or bombing on either hill meant almost certain death for Americans or Germans.

Ronchetti points out that being in a foxhole was where a soldier wanted to be when the bombs and mortars started falling.

>> This is an American foxhole made by the American soldiers.

As they approached the top of the hill, they were digging very quickly and made these little holes to protect themselves.

And when they were ordered to leave the hole, they would just abandon the foxhole and move forward.

That's why we can see many of them on the slope here.

They needed to make these holes, the shelter because we should imagine this slope not like as we see it today, covered with woods and forests, but completely naked, because there were no trees.

So that's why they needed so badly to get cover in the holes.

>> For more than a month, from early March into the second week of April, the Germans on Hill 913 and the Americans across the way on Monte della Spe stared each other down.

>> During these 40 days of control of Monte della Spe, there were two different situations.

During the day, there were shootings, the exchanging fire with the German soldiers on top of Hill 913.

So some American soldiers were killed here.

Those crosses is just the fact that some of the soldiers got killed during those 40 days because they exchanged fire during that period.

And during the night, the job continued, because they were patrolling the area on both sides, the Germans on Hill 913 and the Americans here on Monte della Spe.

and they were sharing fire down at the bottom in the valley, and Bob Dole in person -- he was leading small platoons down to the bottom to patrol the area.

Monte della Spe was really important, because it was an open gate to the spring offensive for the Po Valley descent.

And Hill 913 was another stronghold of the Germans, one of the last ones, so it was important, in that way, to get rid of it.

>> In mid-March of 1945, Second Lieutenant Bob Dole had already been slightly wounded in the leg by fragments from a German grenade during a night patrol.

He had been baptized into battle.

In late March, Dole headed for Rome and a rest area before all the 10th Mountain Division knew what was coming, the major American offensive across the Gothic Line.

200,000 men would be thrown into the fight.

The 10th Mountain Division's 85th Infantry Regiment would be responsible for Hill 913.

>> They were up in the high ground with a hedgerow, and we were trying to take it.

>> The order was given for Dole and his platoon and the 10th Mountain Division to attack Hill 913 on April the 12th, the same day of President Roosevelt's death.

But fog kept the American air forces grounded.

The attack in this area would instead begin two days later.

[ Explosions ] Things got loud very early on the morning of April 14th.

Bombs from planes and artillery pounded the Germans on 913.

The enemy was being softened up for the American attack.

[ Gunfire, explosions ] >> And we could hear the shells whistling overhead.

It seemed like the whole mountain exploded.

And I was sure that we would have an easy time in a day attack, that the Germans must have been totally destroyed by the bombing, but not so.

>> After the bombing, they thought there was no German soldiers left.

>> In combat, you're numb.

There's not much that goes for your head.

One or two days of combat, and you're just a robot or you're just moving.

Get up, move, eat when you can, sleep.

You don't have much thoughts about other things -- just being able to move and survive.

>> After American planes left and the artillery barrage ended, the 10th Mountain Division started down from Monte della Spe to attack German-occupied Hill 913.

>> We thought, with all the bombardment, U.S. airplanes, it would be duck soup.

You know, somebody said "a slam dunk."

>> On the 14th of April, early in the morning, all three regiments of the 10th Mountain Division were here ready for the attack.

They were prepared for the descent of this hill, going towards Hill 913, where the German troops were located.

>> Bob Dole's Company I approached the valley separating Monte della Spe and Hill 913.

Dole's platoon expected only slight German resistance following the barrage before the assault.

Bob Dole's life was about to take a sudden turn.

>> Bob Dole, with his platoon, was coming down from top of Monte della Spe through the stream coming down, and they follow the stream because it was not mined.

As the American soldiers exited the forest, they spread apart at the bottom of the hill, and the German soldiers from the top, as they spotted them, they started to fire with heavy artillery, with mortars, with rifles.

These fields were not as they appear now, but they were all divided by little bushes and small walls just to separate the properties.

Coming down from Monte della Spe, it was still a bit covered because it was still wooden, but coming up this hill was completely free, so they were easily seeable.

It would be around 500, 600 meters.

They were convinced that there were not many German soldiers left after the bombing.

As soon as they went out of the valley and started the climbing up Hill 913, a mortar explosion started a fight, and they realized the Germans were still there.

>> And my radioman, Corporal Sims, had been hit, and we didn't know if he was dead or alive or whether it was serious or not.

I felt it was my duty as a leader to go out and pull him back into this little ravine for his protection.

>> While rescuing his comrade, he felt something on his right shoulders, like a lot of heat on the right shoulders, and he realized he got wounded.

>> I think my body kind of lurched and I fell in the dirt.

But I couldn't move anything.

I couldn't move my arms, couldn't move my legs.

I don't know what I thought.

I might have thought it was just shock, and maybe in a couple of minutes, I'd get up and walk away.

>> At the time, Dole wasn't sure if it was a bullet or shrapnel fragments that had hit his back.

Either way, he knew he was in trouble.

>> I was losing a considerable amount of blood.

>> The firing was coming from everywhere at the time, including a nearby farmhouse at the base of Hill 913.

>> He managed to shout the name of Frank Carafa, the sergeant.

>> And he went out and pulled me into a little safer place.

The trouble is, he pulled me by the right arm, which was already pretty well banged up.

>> Frank Carafa, Dole's company sergeant, and another soldier, Stanley Kushek, reached Dole as the battle in the small valley between Monte della Spe and Hill 913 raged.

>> There was many casualties and some wounded, and Bob Dole was amongst them.

>> Fortunately, Kushek had one vial of morphine with him.

Bob Dole was paralyzed from the neck down.

>> You know, he gives you a morphine for pain, and I couldn't move my arms or legs, so they put a big "M" on my forehead and my blood so that somebody else wouldn't come along and give me more morphine, which could be fatal.

>> The attack started at 9:45 in the morning, and by 12:30, the company has lost almost all of the soldiers.

>> There were so many wounded that day and so many killed in my division, the 10th Mountain Division.

The medics just were working as hard as they could.

>> Bob Dole, who was there with the other injured soldier -- they didn't move for six hours.

>> Some of my platoon stayed with me, but they had to catch up with the division, which was pushing the Germans out of Italy.

>> It was not until late afternoon when Bob Dole and the other injured soldiers were taken to the infirmary nearby, near the town of Castel d'Aiano.

At the point, Hill 913 was conquered by the American soldiers.

>> The survivors had the guts to take that hill, and that was a key.

After they'd done that, it was sort of a cakewalk getting through Italy.

>> The Americans suffered 460 casualties in taking Hill 913 from the Germans on April 14, 1945, including 98 dead.

Second Lieutenant Bob Dole from Kansas was evacuated.

>> And we were taken to a field hospital.

And then I was -- I think on the next morning, I was sent to a better hospital in Pistoia, Italy.

And then -- And there I stayed.

They had a halter around my neck because my spinal cord had been bruised and my shoulder pretty well shot.

>> April 24, 1945.

Dear Bob, Daddy called to tell me we had a letter from you, and I knew something was wrong, as I've been following the 85th Infantry and 10th Mountain Division all over Italy of the Fifth Army.

I'm anxious to know how it all happened and all that, but, of course, I know that you're handicapped, so I'm patiently waiting to hear.

Good night.

Good luck.

Love, Mom."

>> While lying in the 15th Evacuation Hospital in Italy, he didn't know it, but Bob Dole's life would never be the same.

His wounds outside Castel d'Aiano at the bottom of Hill 913 would be with him forever.

>> So, I didn't have -- I still don't have good sensory perception in my left hand and I don't use my right.

But, you know, it changes your life in a second.

You can be a healthy 21- or 20-year-old second lieutenant who thought he was quite an athlete, and then, for the rest of your life, you rely on other people for help.

>> Bob Dole was operated on on April 15, 1945, nine hours after he was severely wounded on Hill 913.

He was then transferred to a hospital near Florence.

>> 1945, May 3rd.

Doran R. Dole.

The secretary of the war desires me to express his deep regret that your son, Second Lieutenant Dole, Robert J., was seriously wounded in Italy 14 April, 1945.

Hospital sending you new address and further information.

J.A.

Ulio, the adjutant general.

>> Bob Dole's time in Europe during World War II was over, but his journey was just beginning.

Second Lieutenant Bob Dole headed home on June 6, 1945, on the first anniversary of D-Day.

Dole would spend another two years in hospitals in the United States, undergoing numerous surgeries and months of rehabilitation.

During his post-war healing odyssey, he cheated death too many times to count, from kidney failure, to life-threatening infections.

Bob Dole made a lifelong friend in one of those days at Percy Jones General Hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan.

This soldier, too, was seriously wounded in the mountains of Northern Italy in the war's final days.

>> In the same theater was a young Japanese-American who had lifted his fist in the air on December 7, 1941, saying, "You damn Japs."

>> Japanese-American Daniel Inouye from Hawaii was serving with the famed 442nd Regiment, a highly decorated fighting force made up entirely of nisei second-generation Japanese-Americans.

>> One of the men I met was to become a Medal of Honor winner and a United States senator from Hawaii, Dan Inouye.

And he was wounded a week after I was, about a mile from where I was wounded.

And we became fast friends.

>> They would have a meeting in which they would share their experiences and not knowing that each other had been in that theater.

And for Dan Inouye, it will cost him, later, an arm, but not his inability to move forward.

He became the symbol of Japanese-Americans in World War II, one of them, one of the heroes, as Bob Dole was for his state.

And Bob Dole, as a Republican, and Dan Inouye, as a Democrat, found common ground, and I think in large part because they were veterans and they understood what they'd been through and what it was -- what was really worth their time and effort to move legislation forward.

They found common cause and common disagreement.

>> There are no political parties in foxholes.

Like Daniel Inouye, Bob Dole would have to move on from World War II with adjusted goals for his life.

>> I mean, just suddenly, it changes your life.

You know, I don't know whether the word "depressed" is too much, but you get pretty -- You're pretty down when somebody tells you, "Well, you're not going to use your right arm and you're not going to have perception in your left hand and you're gonna lose a kidney."

And, you know, it all kind of gets the best of you for a period of time.

Then you finally recognize, as I said earlier, as Dr. Kelikian told me, you've got to make the most of what you have left.

>> What happened to Bob Dole outside Castel d'Aiano and below German-held 913 would stay with him the rest of his life.

In the early 1960s, Bob Dole returned to Hill 913 for the first time.

Dole returned to Italy as a congressman representing his home state of Kansas.

>> When Bob Dole came here for the first time, in 1962, 17 years after he was wounded, he sat there and stood in silence, contemplating the area and the place where he got the serious wound.

For the village of Castel d'Aiano, it was a privilege to have Bob Dole here.

At the time, he was starting his political career.

Senator Bob Dole always said that Castel d'Aiano is the place where he was reborn a second time, because during the war, he was severely wounded here and he thought he couldn't make it.

So it's just like being born a second time.

So he's very grateful to Castel d'Aiano, 'cause it gave him the possibility to heal and then to make a new life, a new start.

Senator Dole loved so much the people and also the food of the area, of Castel d'Aiano in particular.

He was very fond of tortellini.

He came back several times, and each time he came back to Castel d'Aiano, at lunchtime, he always ordered a plate of tortellini.

>> In the mid-1990s, around the anniversary of the fight here that claimed Bob Dole's right arm and part of his left, the citizens of Castel d'Aiano honored the now-senator from Kansas with a unique monument.

It's close to where Bob Dole was seriously wounded and where Gabriele Ronchetti says Dole was reborn from military life to a long career in public service.

>> This plaque dedicated to Bob Dole was put in 1995, the 14th of April, exactly 50 years after the battle on Hill 913.

It was put right here, easily accessible and not far from the exact spot where Bob Dole was wounded.

So this plaque is dedicated to the 10th Mountain Division soldier and to Lieutenant Bob Dole from the citizen of Castel d'Aiano.

And 1995 is also the same year when the municipality of Castel d'Aiano gave the honorary citizenship to Bob Dole.

>> Bob Dole would return to Castel d'Aiano several more times over the years as he served in Congress and during his Republican presidential run in 1996.

Dole's legacy in this area of Italy is not tied to monuments or street signs or being a part of the famed 10th Mountain Division.

Bob Dole represents the average American soldier who fought to liberate a foreign village, town, city, or country from German occupation.

He is the face of that mission here in Northern Italy.

Many Americans died in the mountains here who never had the opportunities Bob Dole or Daniel Inouye had in life, despite their own physical challenges.

Bob Dole left part of himself on Hill 913, as did so many soldiers who were casualties of the fight here on April 14, 1945, just weeks away from the end of World War II in Europe.

>> We appreciate you being here.

Thank you so much, sir.

>> Following his decades-long political career, Bob Dole could often be found in his wheelchair at the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., a monument he helped bring to fruition to honor his World War II generation.

Veterans groups, many called Honor Flights, would come to visit and be amazed that a famous United States senator and one-time presidential candidate was there to greet them.

>> And you can imagine all the pent-up feelings these men have.

They probably have never talked to anybody, including their wife, about what really happened.

And there was a lot of tears shed and a lot of Kleenex.

When they first arrive and walk into this beautiful, privately funded memorial, it's a tough, tough thing for them to do, but then they -- you know, they get on with it.

♪♪ >> Back in Italy, at the Florence American Cemetery and Memorial, many of those who fought alongside Bob Dole in the 10th Mountain Division lie at peace in neat rows under manicured grass.

One date and one division's name are engraved on many of the headstones here.

We don't know their goals in life or what they would have achieved, but we do know that without them, we would not be able to realize our dreams.

Bob Dole knows this personally.

He has seen combat.

Like, so many others, the experience changed him forever, including physically.

Bob Dole lived the rest of his life in honor of those who never came home and got the opportunity to live theirs.

>> War isn't fun, and people who toss it around like, "Oh, yeah, well, nothing to this, nothing to that" probably haven't seen much action.

♪♪ But we are the disappearing generation.

Might be the greatest generation -- or were.

But now we're the disappearing generation.

And that's the way it works.

You know, we just come and we go.

And that's why you don't want to waste one minute while you're around.

You have to make every minute count.

♪♪ ♪♪ >> Funding for this program provided by... >> Hello.

I'm Dave McIntyre, president of TriWest Health Care Alliance.

We are proud to support the production of this documentary about the exemplary Bob Dole, a great American hero.

Many revered him for his long career in public service, dedicated to bettering the lives of Americans.

Now we all know the full, remarkable story.

>> Can looking back push us forward?

>> Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Billie Holiday.

>> Will our voice be heard through time?

Can our past inspire our future?

>> ...massive act of concern.

♪♪ >> Additional support for this film is provided by... and Witness to War -- preserving the oral histories of combat veterans.