Saturday, October 10 former US Senator Bob Dole will return to Italy to retrace the pathes when he fought in the American 10th Mountain Division. Lieutenant and leader of the company L of the 85th regiment, known as "suicide squad", Bob Dole was a brave and aggressive leader so much that he earned three honors: two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star. Was seriously injured April 14, 1945, the first day of Spring Offensive - the attack of the V Army that led to the final breakthrough of German lines in the high Apennines of Bologna and Modena - when shrapnel from a mortar German shattered the right shoulder and some vertebrae at the neck and spine. He was paralyzed from the neck down, had shards of metal throughout the body and a damaged kidney.
Despite the pessimism of doctors about the possibility, after many surgeries and endless rehabilitation, he survived in honorable physical condition. Today, in a wheelchair for the consequences of those injuries, he is 92 years old and an unshakable optimism.
Bob Dole will spend the second morning and early afternoon in Castel d'Aiano. In the afternoon he specifically expressed a desire, commitments permitting, visit the museum of Iola Montese in which two rooms on the first floor are dedicated to the 10th Mountain Division.