ITALIAN VILLAGE TELLS
DOLE BUONA FORTUNA!
TOWN NEAR WWII BATTLE SITE ROOTS
FOR HONORARY CITIZEN
Newsday
July 5, 1996
By Glenn Kessler. WASHINGTON BUREAU
Castel d'Aiano, Italy - The main street plunges dramatically down the
side of a mountain. There are a few restaurants, a pharmacy and a small
main square flanked by a simple church and a bell tower still under
repair from damage during World War II. Flowers line the balconies,
and lemon trees groan with ripe fruit in the gardens.
This town of 1,700 people looks like many of the villages that dot the
curvy roads that climb through the Apennines, the mountain range in
central Italy separating Tuscany from the flat industrial heartland of the
country.
Except for a touch of Dolemania.
There's that giant "Bob Dole for President" banner overlooking the main
square.
And "Bob Dole for President" signs plastered across every shop
window.
Even a special, circular sticker on car bumpers and signs declaring "Bob
Dole for President . . . Castel d'Aiano, Italy, 1996," replete with the
smiling face of the presumed Republican nominee and miniature U.S.
and Italian flags.
Welcome to the town angling to be the Plains, Ga., or Hope, Ark., of
Italy. There are enough Bob Dole signs here to have shamed
Manchester, N.H., on the eve of the pivotal Republican primary in
February - even if the village itself has long supported Communist and
Socialist parties in Italian elections.
The ties between the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee
and this somewhat obscure mountain village are rooted in war,
commerce, a bit of after-the-fact myth-making and genuine friendship.
"He is an exquisite person," declared Giorgio Chiari, 54, a former mayor
of the town who, along with three other members of the "Friends of Bob
Dole" committee, recently traveled to Washington to meet with the
former senator and present him a proclamation declaring him an
honorary citizen. "Despite what people call his hard exterior, he is very
nice and sincere."
While the Dole campaign has emphasized the Russell, Kan., roots of the
longtime Washington insider seeking to replace President Bill Clinton,
Castel d'Aiano can lay claim to being near the site of the most formative
event of Dole's life. On April 14, 1945, as Americans launched their
final push to oust the Germans from Italy, it was here that the then-21-
year-old lieutenant of the 10th Mountain Division was severely wounded
and nearly died.
The battles in these mountains were bloody and gruesome, but they
came near the end of the war and had little impact on the outcome.
The war injury ended Dole's dream of being a doctor. To this day, his
right arm is virtually useless, leaving him unable to cut his food or tie his
shoes without assistance.
A half-century later, when it was clear Dole was running for president,
the town erected a plaque on the very spot Dole was wounded, about a
mile and half from the town center.
The citation says the plaque was dedicated by the citizens of Castel
d'Aiano as a "token of their eternal gratitude" because Dole was
"seriously wounded while fighting for the freedom of our town."
Actually, that's not quite true. Castel d'Aiano was liberated on March 4,
more than a month earlier.
Townspeople, such as Fabio Masini, who works at a local cafe, also
quickly volunteer that the Tondis, the family that owns the restaurant in
the center of town, helped Dole recover from his wounds after he was
injured.
The more prosaic reality is that the Ristorante Tondi was the place Dole
stopped for directions when he returned to the area in 1962 as a U.S.
congressman. When Dole was wounded, he lost all feeling below his
neck, and medics were certain he would die. So he was whisked to a
military hospital in Pistoia, about 35 miles away.
Nevertheless, Castel d'Aiano has embraced Dole as its own, and Dole
has made frequent visits in return. When Dole formally accepts the
Republican nomination at the party's convention in August, the town
will hold a huge feast and, if all goes as planned, may even have a
satellite hookup to the convention festivities. On Election Day in
November, 30 to 40 people from Castel d'Aiano plan to fly to
Washington for the results.
Dole was injured while he commanded a platoon assigned the task of
taking a hill marked as Number 913 on the U.S. military maps. A recent
inquiry in the pharmacy for the location prompted a pharmacist to close
up shop and offer to drive a visitor to the site.
At first, it's hard to imagine a war was fought in such a peaceful setting.
The brass plaque honoring Dole is mounted on a knotted tree stump in
the middle of a clump of trees and wildflowers, next to a small stream.
But the residue of war, such as the remains of German fortifications, still
exists farther up the hill.
The attempt to drive the Germans out had been an extraordinarily
difficult campaign. According to Richard Ben Cramer, who profiled
Dole in his book "What It Takes," of the 200 original men in the
company to which Dole was assigned, there were 183 casualties in the
first four months.
U.S. bombers and artillery pounded Hill 913 and other German positions
on April 14, 1945, the day the final push began. Leonard D'Ooge, who
commanded a platoon assigned to provide machine-gun cover for Dole's
platoon, recalled in a recent interview that "it looked like they had
bombed the place to oblivion." But the Germans were dug in, and it took
hours of combat to secure the hill.
Dole was shot as he tried to take out a German machine-gun nest in a
farmhouse - one of 553 casualties suffered by the mountain infantry that
day. Cramer writes that medics couldn't get to Dole for hours, so a
sergeant gave him a shot of morphine and then traced the letter "M" on
Dole's forehead with his blood. The army had run out of the lipstick used
to warn medics that the wounded had already received morphine,
D'Ooge said.
The Germans would surrender across Europe within three weeks. Dole
would spend more than three years - and undergo eight operations - in
recuperation.
The crisp mountain air of Castel d'Aiano now makes it a popular
weekend destination for Italians seeking to escape the heat of nearby
Bologna. Chiari readily admits that the ensuing publicity about the close
links between the town and a potential president of the United States
makes for good business. He quickly ticks off the television and
newspaper reports that have appeared in Italy about Castel d'Aiano since
Dole began his campaign.
Still, there also appears to be real affection for Dole, even though his
conservative politics appear out of sync with a town in the heart of the
Italian left. "It doesn't make any difference," Chiari impatiently said,
waving his hands.
"Bill Clinton has done many good things in terms of politics and the
economy. Things seem to be running smoothly in the United States,"
Chiari said. "But he is not the same person as Bob Dole."
Chiari concedes, however, that the town has adopted Dole in part
because he is Bob Dole. "Many other American soldiers have come back
here," Chiari said. "But when Bob Dole came here in 1962, he had been
elected to the American Congress. He was already famous at the time."
