Military

Bob Dole’s Incredible Story of Survival in World War II

Bill Thompson

In April 1945 the war in Europe was nearing its end. But battles were still raging, And on April 14 one such battle left a young American 2nd Lieutenant gravely wounded.

His name was Bob Dole, a 21-year-old from Kansas who had joined the Army in 1942.

The German shell that hit him that day in Italy in 1945 was nearly fatal. Miraculously Dole survived, but it would be another three years before he was out of the hospital.

Dole, of course, went on to a long, illustrious, and successful political career, culminating with the 1996 Republican nomination for president.

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In 2005 Dole wrote a memoir of his World War II experience, a book called One Soldier’s Story. I met with him in his Washington DC office one day that spring to talk about it, some 60 years after he nearly died on that battlefield in Italy.

So here now, from 2005, Bob Dole.

Bob Dole died in 2021 – he was 98.

Margarethe Cammermeyer, And How She Fought Anti-Gay Discrimination in the Military

Bill Thompson
Photo by Zesar2005

President-elect Donald Trump has said that one of his first acts as president will be to remove transgender individuals from the U.S. military.

More than 30 years ago a well regarded military officer was kicked out of the service simply for being gay. And her subsequent legal fight catapulted her, and the issue of gay service members, to the forefront.

Margarethe Cammermeyer first joined the Army as a nurse in 1961. She met a man, got married, and was separated from the Army in 1968 because of a policy at the time banning pregnant women from serving.

She was later able to rejoin, and also divorced her husband. Then, during an otherwise routine security clearance interview in 1989 Cammermeyer disclosed her status as a lesbian.

Get your copy of Margarethe Cammermeyer’s book

In 1992 she was thrown out. But she filed a lawsuit in 1994 challenging her separation – and she won. She returned to the military until her retirement in 1997.

Cammermeyer’s case shone a bright new spotlight on the longstanding ban on gays in the military, and led to a sea change in LGTBQ rights.

I met her just a few months after her court viceroy, in the fall of 1994 when her autobiography Serving in Silence was published. That was the book, by the way, that was made into a television movie starring Glenn Close.

So here now, from 1994, Margarethe Cammermeyer.

Margarethe Cammermeyer is 82 now. She ‘s been married to her wife since 2012.

Honoring Vietnam War Heroes: Col. David Hackworth’s Most Important Book

Bill Thompson

Veteran’s Day was originally known as Armistice Day, marking the end of World War I on November 11th.

So perhaps it was fitting that a baby born on Armistice Day in 1930 would be destined for an illustrious military career,

David Hackworth joined the Army shortly after World War II, and was decorated for his service in the Korean War.

By the late 1960s Hackworth had become the youngest Army colonel in Vietnam.

Get your copy of David Hackworth’s book

He helped form what became known as Tiger Force.

After the war Hackworth became a journalist and author, and in 2002 wrote a book about the ragtag battalion he was sent to lead in 1969. He called the book Steel My Soldiers’ Hearts. He and I talked about the book that spring, including his wife’s essential role in writing it.

So here now, from 2002, Col. David Hackworth.

David Hackworth died in 2005 at age 74. He’s buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Rebuilding The Navy: Former Sec. John Lehman

Bill Thompson
John F. Lehman Jr., Secretary of the Navy

After Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president in 1981, one of his eary appointments was to name a new Secretary of the Navy, who was tasked with rebuilding a demoralized and under-equipped Navy.

He chose a 38-year-old Naval Reserve aviator named John Lehman. No stranger to Washington, Lehman had served on the National Security Council staff under Henry Kissinger during the Nixon administration.

Lehman served as Secretary until his resignation in spring 1987. And the following year he wrote a book called Command of the Seas.

Get your copy of John Lehman’s book

And on top of all of his public service , Lehman is also a first cousin once removed of Princess Grace of Monaco.

I spoke with him when his book was published in the early weeks of 1989.

So here now, from 1989, John Lehman.

John Lehman is 82 now. He’s chairman of the Princess Grace Foundation USA. He lives in Pennsylvania and New York.

Remembering the Ia Drang Valley: The Battle That Changed Vietnam

Bill Thompson
Gen. Hal Moore. Photo by Ahodges7

It’s been almost 50 years since the last American soldier came home from Vietnam. But the memories of the 10-year war that tore the nation apart still color the U.S. today.

On this Memorial Day I wanted to bring you an interview I did in 1993 with retired Army Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and war correspondent Joe Gallowaty. They had recently returned from a visit to Vietnam.

Joe Galloway. Photo by Cmichel67

They had gone back to the Ia Drang Valley, scene of the first major battle of the war in 1965, with Gen. Moore in command. On their visit, they met with some Vietnamese veterans who, nearly 30 years earlier, had been determined to kill them.

Get your copy of Joe Galloway & Hal Moore’s book

Moore and Galloway wrote a book about the historic battle, called We Were Soldiers Once… And Young. When it was made into a movie in 2002 the title was shortened to “We Were Soldiers.” Mel Gibson portrayed Gen. Moore.

So here now, from the fall of 1993, Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway.

Gen. Hal Moore died in 2017, three days before his 95th birthday.

Joe Galloway died in 2021 at age 79.

How a Navy Cross Hero Fought PTSD After Fallujah

Bill Thompson

Veteran’s Day reminds us that combat is not an isolated event in a service member’s life. It is often a psychological wound that is slow to heal.

Serving in Iraq in 2004, Marine Sgt. Jeremiah Workman earned the Navy Cross for gallantry under fire, after a ferocious firefight in Fallujah in which he killed 20 enemy combatants.

But Workmen returned home with post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Protecting his mental health proved to be as big a challenge as protecting his men in Fallujah was

In 2009, the year he was medically discharged from the Marines, Workman wrote a memoir called Shadow Of The Sword. That’s when I met him.

So here now, from 2009, Jeremiah Workman.

Jeremiah Workman announced last spring that he will run for Governor of his native Ohio in 2026.

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Ariel Sharon And The Burden of Leadership

Bill Thompson

Israel and Hamas are at war. It’s the latest chapter in a long history of cconflict and struggle for the Jewish state

One who participated in many of those struggles and conflicts was Ariel Sharon.

I met him in the fall of 1989, when he published his autobiography, called Warrior.
So here now, from 1989, Ariel Sharon.

He was there in 1948 at the formation of the Israeli army,and rose steadily in the ranks in the years that followed.

Among the battles he saw: the 1956 Suez Crisis, the 1967 Six-Day War, the War of Attrition, and the Yom-Kippur War of 1973.

In the 1982 Lebanon War Sharon was Israel’s Minister of Defense.

And he served as prime minister of Israel from 2001 to 2006

Ariel Sharon died in 2014 just days before his 86th birthday.

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The USS Cole Attack: Commander Kirk Lippold’s Perspective

Bill Thompson

In 2012 Lippold wrote a book about the incident, and I spoke with him the day before the 12th anniversary of the attack.

It didn’t start with September 11th.

Almost a year before al Qaeda terrorists flew planes into buildings, suicide bombers affiliated with al Qaeda attacked the destroyer USS Cole as it was refueling in Yemen. Seventeen American sailors died in the attack.

The commanding officer of the Cole was Kirk Lippold, a 41-year-old Navy veteran. And even though an exhaustive investigation found nothing to indicate Lippold could have foreseen or prevented the attack, he was subsequently denied a promotion several times.

So here now, from 2012, Kirk Lippold.

Kirk Lippold is now 64. He works for a political marketing organization

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David Morehouse

Bill Thompson

His story may sound like something from a scary science fiction movie.

Or from an episode of South Park.

But in 1996, a former Army intelligence officer named David Morehouse wrote a book about his experience as what he called a “psychic warrior.”

In that book, Morehouse explained how he was recruited for a super top secret defense program called Operation Stargate.

It was based on the principle of so-called “remote viewing,” in which extraordinary powers of the mind were used as an intelligence-gathering tool.

I met David Morehouse when he was on a book tour promoting “Psychic Warrior.” So here now, from 1996, David Morehouse.

David Morehouse later made a career of training others to use their powers of remote viewing. He is now 69 and losing California.

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Denise Donnelly

Bill Thompson

Memorial Day is the day America honors the men and women who have sacrificed their lives in military service.

But not all of those lives were lost on the battlefield.

U.S. Air Force fighter pilot Michael Donnelly flew 44 combat missions during the Persian Gulf war, Operation Desert Storm, in the early 1990s.

But in 1996, Donnelly was medically discharged from the Air Force, after being diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

His subsequent fight with the U.S. government to get medical treatment proved to be the most difficult battle he had ever fought.

In 1998, Donnelly and his sister Denise co-wrote Falcon’s Cry: A Desert Storm Memoir.

So here now, from 1998, Denise Donnelly.

Michael Donnelly died in 2005. He was 46.

A 2008 study by the University of Cincinnati found that confirmed 48 cases of ALS in Persian Gulf war veterans.

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