Bob Dole

Medal of Honor recipient Jack H. Lucas’s classic memoir of his heroics at the Battle of Iwo Jima—with a foreword by Bob Dole and reissued to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the battle in 2020. On February 20, 1945, the second day of the assault on Iwo Jima—one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific theater in World War II—Private Jack Lucas, who was only seventeen, and three other Marines engaged in a close-proximity firefight with Japanese soldiers. When two enemy grenades landed in their trench, Lucas jumped on one and pulled the other under his body to save the lives of his comrades. Lucas was blown into the air as his body was torn apart by 250 entrance wounds. He was so severely wounded that his team left him for dead. Miraculously, he survived. While on the hospital ship Samaritan, his spirit soared to see the American flag flying atop Mount Suribachi—the same flag immortalized in Joe Rosenthal’s iconic photograph, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. Lucas endured twenty-one grueling surgeries and carried 200 pieces of shrapnel in his body for the rest of his life. Awarded the Medal of Honor, he became the youngest Marine in U. S. history—and the youngest of all World War II servicemen—to receive the honor. Indestructible tells the remarkable story of an extraordinary American possessed with a fierce determination to serve his country.

For Ernest “Ernie” Garcia, the American dream began in Mexico more than a hundred years ago. Ernie, raised in Kansas, became the US Senate sergeant at arms and escorted President Ronald Reagan to the podium to deliver the State of the Union address. After the president’s speech, Ernie reflected on his family’s long and arduous journey from Zacatecas to El Paso to Kansas as well as on his presence in the Capitol alongside the president, Congress, and the Supreme Court. He was certain his ancestors never imagined that their dreams would lead him to the White House. Ernie’s experience as sergeant at arms is just one chapter in the inspiring life story told in this book. Drawing upon oral histories recounted by family members, friends, and Ernie himself, Dennis Raphael Garcia reaches back to the travails and grit of great-grandfather Pedro as he made his way to the American heartland with his son Jose. Like so many immigrants with courage and determination, they found great hardship but also great opportunity. A decade of field labor, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and two world wars laid the groundwork for Ernie’s story. Marine, Public Servant, Kansan describes how this Mexican American boy, fatherless at a young age and facing discrimination, found his way to a place alongside a senator and a president through hard work and education—and some basketball. Along the way he realized his own ambition to become an officer in the Marine Corps. The book follows Ernie through both Iraq wars to his service, even in retirement, as superintendent of the Kansas State Highway Patrol. In Marine, Public Servant, Kansan, the remarkable character of not just one Kansan son of Mexican immigrants, but also the immigrant experience itself is eloquently and poignantly weaved into the story of Ernie and his family’s American dream.

A town at the center of the United States becomes the site of an ongoing struggle for freedom and equality. In May, 1854, Massachusetts was in an uproar. A judge, bound by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, had just ordered a young African American man who had escaped from slavery in Virginia and settled in Boston to be returned to bondage in the South. An estimated fifty thousand citizens rioted in protest. Observing the scene was Amos Adams Lawrence, a wealthy Bostonian, who ?waked up a stark mad Abolitionist.” As quickly as Lawrence waked up, he combined his fortune and his energy with others to create the New England Emigrant Aid Company to encourage abolitionists to emigrate to Kansas to ensure that it would be a free state. The town that came to bear Lawrence’s name became the battleground for the soul of America, with abolitionists battling pro-slavery Missourians who were determined to make Kansas a slave state. The onset of the Civil War only escalated the violence, leading to the infamous raid of William Clarke Quantrill when he led a band of vicious Confederates (including Frank James, whose brother Jesse would soon join them) into town and killed two hundred men and boys. Stark Mad Abolitionists shows how John Brown, Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, Sam Houston, and Abraham Lincoln all figure into the story of Lawrence and ? Bleeding Kansas.” The story of Amos Lawrence’s eponymous town is part of a bigger story of people who were willing to risk their lives and their fortunes in the ongoing struggle for freedom and equality.

The former U. S. Senate Republican leader and 1996 Republican presidential nominee recounts his inspirational experiences of serving with the 10th Mountain Division during World War II, during which he suffered a dangerous shrapnel wound that resulted in a three-year struggle for survival. Reprint. 75,000 first printing.

"Ending Hunger Now" brings together three powerful voices behind a shared conviction: that helping the millions who lack basic provision for food has become a religious imperative and human priority. Writing for congregations and individuals of faith, McGovern, Dole, and Messer appeal to the religious ethical foundations for action against hunger. Informative, inspiring, and filled with practical personal involvement and political commitment to the cause.

Throughout these 35 reprinted articles, which were written by American diplomats, missionaries, journalists, religious and public figures and scientists, the plight of the Armenian people unfolds. Not only do readers learn of the Armenian struggle for equality and ultimately, independence from the Ottoman Empire, but they also discover rich evidence about the Armenians themselves, their church, instabilities within the empire and charitable efforts spearheaded by American Christian missionaries. The language and tone of these articles reflect US and European attitudes of the time, which were influenced by the perception of the Empire's Sultan Abdul Hammid II as the ultimate anti-Christian, pan-Islamic Ottoman ruler. But the overall humanitarian impulses of these writers are evident and we see the beginnings of an Armenian-US relationship that would strengthen over the course of the 20th century.

Howell Thomas Heflin of Alabama was one of the last of the Roosevelt-style Southern progressive Democrats to serve in the United States Senate. He is also one of the few politicians in recent history to have spent a career in the public eye and retired with his integrity intact. This carefully researched authorized biography details the life of a man who grew up the son of a Methodist minister, graduated from a liberal arts college, became a highly decorated combat Marine in World War II, and then turned to the family businesses of law and politics. He served as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court before going to the Senate, where he remained for 18 years. A large, folksy man, his engaging personal style masked a keen mind and political cunning that served him well in Washington and made him friends on both sides of the aisle.

Legendary for his own dry wit, the 1996 Republican presidential nominee presents a handpicked collection of the funniest ripostes, remarks, and observations made by and about the twentieth century's greatest politicians. Reprint.