End of an era: Last WWII vets leaving Capitol

WASHINGTON — Combat veterans of World War II have served in every Congress for the past 70 years, shaping foreign policy and a vision of the United States as the world’s benevolent leader, willing to use its economic and military might as a global force for freedom.

That era is ending — in a quiet fashion befitting the generation that defined it.

On Tuesday, Rep. Ralph Hall, R-Texas, lost his primary bid after more than three decades in office, making him and Rep. John Dingell, DMich., who is giving up a seat he has held since the Eisenhower administration, the last two veterans of the war to serve in the Capitol. The next Congress will have none.

Hall, 91, is the oldest member of Congress. He said that the Congress he joined in 1981 was more cooperative than the modern one, in large part because of the shared experience of those who had fought in World War II.

“We could pass anything we needed to pass,” he said.

Even so, Hall said that today’s veterans in Congress are as dedicated and loyal to the country as his generation was, even though many of them served in all-volunteer forces and in very different kinds of wars.

“We all decorate different graves, and we remember different wars,” Hall said.

Bob Dole, whose poignant story as a soldier severely wounded in the war propelled him to a political career that spanned four decades, including representing Kansas in the Senate and winning the GOP nomination for president in 1996, said: “It is the passing of an era of some very great leaders who came out of World War II. I think they had a better appreciation for America; they understood sacrifice.”

In the early 1970s, roughly three-quarters of all members of Congress were veterans, and the bulk of them had served in World War II, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Today, about 1 in 5 members is a veteran, and only one member of the leadership, Speaker John Boehner of West Chester, Ohio, served in the military.

Advocates for veterans see this as more than symbolic because it contributes to a perception that members of Congress are not as sensitive to the needs of service members and veterans.