Bob Dole to lie in state in Capitol Rotunda Thursday
On Monday, congressional leaders announced that former Senate majority leader and 1996 Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole would lie in state in the US Capitol Rotunda on Thursday.
Dole died Sunday at age 98. He had announced in February that he was being treated for advanced lung cancer.
Dole was a decorated veteran, having served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1948. He was awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for his service in World War II. In 1945, Dole’s two vertebrae were crushed, and he was paralyzed in his arms and legs when a shell fragment hit him in northern Italy in 1945. He spent three years in a hospital recovering and never regained the use of his right hand.
Arriving in Washington at the dawn of the Kennedy administration, Dole would serve for 27 years as a U.S. senator from Kansas, including two stints as the Senate majority leader, though he might be best known for his unsuccessful run as the Republican presidential nominee against Bill Clinton in 1996, his third attempt at the White House. He also served as President Gerald Ford’s running mate in 1976 after Nelson Rockefeller declined to stay on as vice president.