Daniel Inouye
Daniel Ken Inouye ( ;, September 7, 1924 – December 17, 2012) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Hawaii from 1963 until his death in 2012. Beginning in 1959, he was the first U.S. representative for the State of Hawaii. A member of the Democratic Party, he also served as the president pro tempore of the United States Senate from 2010 until his death. Inouye was the highest-ranking Asian-American politician in U.S. history, until Kamala Harris became vice president in 2021. Inouye also chaired various Senate Committees, including those on Intelligence , Indian Affairs, Commerce, and Appropriations. Inouye fought in World War II as part of the 442nd Infantry Regiment. He lost his right arm to a grenade wound and received several military decorations, including the Medal of Honor (the nation's highest military award). He later earned a J.D. degree from George Washington University Law School. Returning to Hawaii, Inouye was elected to Hawaii's territorial House of Representatives in 1953, and was elected to the territorial Senate in 1957. When Hawaii achieved statehood in 1959, Inouye was elected as its first member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He was  first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1962. Inouye never lost an election in 58 years as an elected official, and he exercised an exceptionally large influence on Hawaii politics. Inouye was the second Asian American senator following Hawaii Republican Hiram Fong. Inouye was the first Japanese American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives and the first Japanese American to serve in the U.S. Senate. Because of his seniority, Inouye became president pro tempore of the Senate following the death of Sen. Robert Byrd on June 29, 2010, making him third in the presidential line of succession after  the Vice President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. At the time of his death, Inouye was the most senior sitting U.S. senator, the second-oldest sitting U.S. senator (seven and a half months younger than Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey), and the last sitting U.S. senator to have served during the presidencies of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon. Inouye was a posthumous recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Order of the Paulownia Flowers. Among other public structures, Honolulu International Airport has since been renamed Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in  his memory. Early life. Inouye was born on September 7, 1924, in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, the son of Hyotaro and Kame ("née" Imanaga) Inouye. He was a Nisei (through his father) and Sansei (through his mother) Japanese American, the son of a Japanese immigrant father and a mother whose parents had migrated from Japan. He grew up in the Bingham Tract, a Chinese-American enclave in the predominantly Japanese-American community of Mōiliili in Honolulu. Inouye graduated from Honolulu's President William McKinley High School. Military service (1941–1947). During the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Inouye served  as a medical volunteer. In 1943, when the US Army organized the segregated all-"Nisei" 442nd Regimental Combat Team, Inouye curtailed his premedical studies at the University of Hawaii and volunteered for duty. This army formation was mostly made up of second-generation Japanese Americans from Hawaii and the mainland. Inouye was promoted to sergeant within his first year, and he was assigned as a platoon sergeant. He served in Italy in 1944 during the Rome-Arno Campaign before his regiment was transferred to the Vosges Mountains region of France, where he spent two weeks in the battle to relieve the  Lost Battalion, a battalion of the 141st Infantry Regiment that was surrounded by German forces. He received a battlefield commission to second lieutenant for his actions there, becoming the youngest officer in his regiment. At one point while he was leading an attack, a shot struck him in the chest directly above his heart, but the bullet was stopped by the two silver dollars he happened to have stacked in his shirt pocket. He continued to carry the coins throughout the war in his shirt pocket as good luck charms, until he lost them shortly before the battle in which  he lost his arm. Assault on Colle Musatello. On April 21, 1945, Lt. Inouye was grievously wounded while leading an assault on a heavily defended ridge near San Terenzo in Liguria, Italy, called the Colle Musatello. The ridge served as a strongpoint of the German fortifications known as the Gothic Line, the last and most unyielding line of German defensive works in Italy. As he led his platoon in a flanking maneuver, three German machine guns opened fire from covered positions only 40 yards away, pinning his men to the ground. Inouye stood up to attack and was shot in  the stomach. Ignoring his wound, he proceeded to attack and destroy the first machine gun nest with hand grenades and his Thompson submachine gun. When informed of the severity of his wound, he refused treatment and rallied his men for an attack on the second machine gun position, which he successfully destroyed before collapsing to the ground from blood loss. As his squad distracted the third machine gunner, Inouye crawled toward the final bunker, coming within 10 yards. As he raised himself on his left elbow and cocked his right arm to throw his last hand grenade, a German soldier  saw Inouye and fired a 30 mm Schiessbecher antipersonnel rifle grenade at him from inside the bunker. It struck Inouye directly on his right elbow. The high explosive grenade failed to detonate, saving Inouye from instant death but amputating most of his right arm at the elbow (except for a few tendons and a flap of skin) via blunt force trauma. Despite this gruesome injury, Inouye was again saved from likely death due to the blunt, low-velocity grenade tearing the nerves in his arm unevenly and incompletely. This involuntarily squeezed the grenade tightly via a reflex arc instead of  causing his hand to go limp and drop a live grenade at Inouye's feet. However, this still left him crippled, in terrible pain, under fire with minimal cover and staring at a live grenade "clenched in a fist that suddenly didn't belong to me anymore." Inouye's horrified soldiers moved to his aid, but he shouted for them to keep back out of fear his severed fist would involuntarily relax and drop the grenade. As the German inside the bunker began hastily reloading his rifle with regular full metal jacket ammunition (replacing the wood-tipped rounds used to  propel rifle grenades), Inouye quickly pried the live hand grenade from his useless right hand and transferred it to his left. The German soldier had just finished reloading and was aiming his rifle to finish him off when Inouye threw his grenade through the narrow firing slit, killing the German. Stumbling to his feet with the remnants of his right arm hanging grotesquely at his side and his Thompson in his left hand, braced against his hip, Inouye continued forward, killing at least one more German before suffering his fifth and final wound of the day in his left leg . This finally halted his one-man assault for good, and sent him tumbling unconscious to the bottom of the ridge. He awoke to see the worried men of his platoon hovering over him. His only comment before being carried away was to gruffly order them back to their positions, saying "Nobody called off the war!" The remainder of Inouye's mutilated right arm was later amputated at a field hospital without proper anesthesia, as he had been given too much morphine at an aid station and it was feared any more would lower his blood pressure enough to kill him . Post-injury career. Although Inouye had lost his right arm, he remained in the military until 1947 and was honorably discharged with the rank of captain. At the time Inouye left the Army, he was a recipient of the Bronze Star Medal and the Purple Heart. Inouye was initially awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his bravery in this action, with the award later being upgraded to the Medal of Honor by President Bill Clinton (alongside 19 other "Nisei" servicemen who served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and had been denied proper recognition of their bravery due to their  race). His story, along with interviews with him about the war as a whole, were featured prominently in the 2007 Ken Burns documentary "The War", where he made the following statement about Medics. "To me the real heroes of war are those who seldom get medals, the Medics. Whenever a man gets injured, he very seldom calls out for his sweetheart or mother, the first thing he calls out for is a Medic, always a Medic, and whenever that word is heard, the Medic rushes over dodging bullets ... that takes guts." While recovering at Percy Jones Army Hospital from war  wounds and the amputation of his right forearm following the grenade wound, Inouye met future Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole, then a fellow patient. While at the same hospital, Inouye also met future fellow Democratic senator Philip Hart, who had been injured on D-Day. Dole mentioned to Inouye that after the war, he planned to go to Congress; Inouye beat him there by a few years. The two remained lifelong friends. In 2003, the hospital was renamed the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center in honor of the three World War II veterans. Medal of Honor citation. Citation: Second Lieutenant  Daniel K. Inouye distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action on 21 April 1945, in the vicinity of San Terenzo, Italy. While attacking a defended ridge guarding an important road junction, Second Lieutenant Inouye skillfully directed his platoon through a hail of automatic weapon and small arms fire, in a swift enveloping movement that resulted in the capture of an artillery and mortar post and brought his men to within 40 yards of the hostile force. Emplaced in bunkers and rock formations, the enemy halted the advance with crossfire from three machine guns. With complete disregard for his personal safety , Second Lieutenant Inouye crawled up the treacherous slope to within five yards of the nearest machine gun and hurled two grenades, destroying the emplacement. Before the enemy could retaliate, he stood up and neutralized a second machine gun nest. Although wounded by a sniper's bullet, he continued to engage other hostile positions at close range until an exploding grenade shattered his right arm. Despite the intense pain, he refused evacuation and continued to direct his platoon until enemy resistance was broken and his men were again deployed in defensive positions. In the attack, 25 enemy soldiers were killed and  eight others captured. By his gallant, aggressive tactics and by his indomitable leadership, Second Lieutenant Inouye enabled his platoon to advance through formidable resistance, and was instrumental in the capture of the ridge. Second Lieutenant Inouye's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the United States Army. Congressional career. Due to the loss of his arm, Inouye abandoned his plans to become a surgeon, and returned to college to study political science under the G.I. Bill. He graduated from the University  of Hawaii at Manoa in 1950 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science. He earned his J.D. degree from George Washington University Law School in Washington, D. C., in 1953, and was elected into the Phi Delta Phi legal fraternity. In 1953, Inouye was elected to the Hawaii territorial House of Representatives, and was immediately elected majority leader. He served two terms there, and was elected to the Hawaii territorial senate in 1957. Midway through Inouye's first term in the territorial senate, Hawaii achieved statehood. He won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as Hawaii's  first full member, and took office on August 21, 1959, the same date Hawaii became a state; he was re-elected in 1960. United States Senate. In 1962, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, succeeding retiring fellow Democrat Oren E. Long. He was the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee between 1976 and 1979, and the chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee between 1987 and 1995. He introduced the National Museum of the American Indian Act in 1984 which led to the inauguration of the National Museum of the American Indian in 2004. He was chairman of the  Senate Indian Affairs Committee between 2001 and 2003, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee between 2007 and 2009 and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee between 2009 and 2012. He was reelected eight times, usually without serious difficulty. His closest race was in 1992 when state senator Rick Reed held him to 57 percent of the vote—the only time he received less than 69 percent of the vote. He delivered the keynote address at the turbulent 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and gained national attention for his service on the Senate Watergate Committee. Inouye was also involved in  the Iran-Contra investigations of the 1980s, chairing a special committee (Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition) from 1987 until 1989. During the hearings, Inouye referred to the operations that had been revealed as a "secret government", saying: Criticizing the logic of Marine Lt. Colonel Oliver North's justifications for his actions in the affair, Inouye made reference to the Nuremberg trials, provoking a heated interruption from North's attorney Brendan Sullivan, an exchange that was widely repeated in the media at the time. He was also seen as a pro-Taiwan senator  and helped in forming the Taiwan Relations Act. On May 1, 1977, Inouye stated that President Carter had telephoned him to express his objections to a sentence in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the Central Intelligence Agency. On November 20, 1993, Inouye voted against the North American Free Trade Agreement. The trade agreement linked the United States, Canada, and Mexico into a single free trade zone and was signed into law on December 8 by President Bill Clinton. In 2009, Inouye assumed leadership of the powerful Senate Committee on Appropriations after longtime chairman Robert Byrd stepped down. Following  the latter's death on June 28, 2010, Inouye was elected President pro tempore, the officer third in the presidential line of succession. In 2010, Inouye announced his decision to run for a ninth term. He easily won the Democratic primary—the real contest in this heavily Democratic state—and then trounced Republican state representative Campbell Cavasso with 74 percent of the vote. Inouye ran for Senate Majority Leader several times without success. Prior to his death, Inouye announced that he planned to run for a record tenth term in 2016 when he would have been 92 years old. He  also said, 1980s. In 1986, West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd opted to run for Senate Majority Leader, believing that his two opponents to claiming the position would be Inouye and Louisiana Senator J. Bennett Johnston. Cutting a deal with Inouye, Byrd pledged that he would step aside from the position in 1989 in the event that Inouye supported him for Senate Majority Leader of the 100th United States Congress. Inouye accepted the offer and was given the chance to select the new Senate sergeant-at-arms. The same year as the deal with Byrd, Inouye was named as one of  the 80 individuals to receive the Ellis Island Medal of Honor from the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation. Foreign policy. In early 1981, Inouye called for tighter restrictions on what Americans can ship overseas, citing his belief that American international stature would be harmed along with the country's foreign policy interests in the event of the shipments causing environmental damage. In March 1981, Inouye was one of 24 elected officials to issue a joint statement calling on the Reagan administration to compose a method of finding a peaceful solution that would end The Troubles in Northern Ireland. In  July 1981, a Federal commission began hearings to decide on rewarding compensations to Japanese-Americans placed in internment camps during World War II, Inouye and fellow Hawaii Senator Spark M. Matsunaga delivering opening statements. In November, during an appearance at the opening of a 10-day public forum at Tufts University on Japanese internment, Inouye stated his opposition to distributing reparation fees for Japanese-Americans previously incarcerated during World War II, adding that it "would be insulting even to try to do so." In August 1988, Inouye attended President Reagan's signing of legislation apologizing for the internment camps and  establishing a $1.25 billion trust fund to pay reparations to both those who were placed in camps and to their families. In September 1989, during the Senate's debate over bestowing reparations to Japanese-Americans interned during World War II, Inouye delivered his first public speech on the issue and noted 22,000 dollars were bestowed to each captive American in the Iran hostage crisis. In October 2002, Inouye was one of 23 Senators who voted against authorization of the use of military force in Iraq. Domestic policy. In April 1981, Inouye introduced a Senate joint resolution proclaiming April 19–26 , 1982, as "National Nurse-Midwifery Week." Inouye stated the profession deserved such recognition because of "the unique contribution that our nation's nurse-midwives have made to the high quality of life that we possess in the United States." In March 1982, amid controversy surrounding Democrat Harrison A. Williams for taking bribes in the Abscam sting operation, Inouye delivered a closing defense argument stating the possibility of the Senate looking foolish in the event the conviction was reversed on appeal. Inouye confirmed that he had received telephone calls regarding Williams critiquing his remarks during his defense of himself the previous  week and questioned if the Senate was going to punish him "because his presentation was rambling, not in the tradition of Daniel Webster" and for his wife believing in him. In October 1982, after President Reagan appointed two new members to the board of the Legal Services Corporation, Inouye was one of 32 Senators to sign a letter expressing grave concerns over the appointments. On December 23, Inouye voted against a 5 cent a gallon increase on gasoline taxes across the US imposed to aid the financing of highway repairs and mass transit. The bill passed on the last day  of the 97th United States Congress. In March 1984, Inouye voted against a constitutional amendment authorizing periods in public school for silent prayer and against President Reagan's unsuccessful proposal for a constitutional amendment permitting organized school prayer in public schools. In August, Inouye secured the acceptance of the Senate's defense appropriations subcommittee for an amendment meant to cure mainland milk arriving at Hawaiian and Alaskan military bases sour, arguing thousands of gallons of milk coming from the mainland must be dumped due to their souring and said shipments were arriving eight days after pasteurization. In February 1989, after  Oliver L. North went on trial in Federal District Court amid accusations of a dozen crimes in accordance with his role in diverting profits from the secret sale of arms to Iran to the Nicaraguan rebels and Jack Brooks questioned North's role in composing a "contingency plan in the event of an emergency that would suspend the American Constitution," Inouye replied that the inquiry touched on both a classified and sensitive matter that would only be discussed in a closed session. Gang of 14. On May 23, 2005, Inouye was a member of a bipartisan group of 14 moderate  senators, known as the Gang of 14, to forge a compromise on the Democrats' use of the judicial filibuster, thus blocking the Republican leadership's attempt to implement the "nuclear option," a means of forcibly ending a filibuster. Under the agreement, the Democrats would retain the power to filibuster a Bush judicial nominee only in an "extraordinary circumstance," and the three most conservative Bush appellate court nominees (Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, and William H. Pryor, Jr.) would receive a vote by the full U.S. Senate. Electoral history. Inouye never lost an election. In August 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson  placed a phone call to vice president and Democratic presumptive presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey, urging him to select Inouye as his running mate. Johnson went as far as to request a background check on Inouye from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Johnson told Humphrey that Inouye's World War II injuries would silence Humphrey's critics on the Vietnam War: "He answers Vietnam with that empty sleeve. He answers your problems with (Republican presumptive presidential nominee and former vice president Richard) Nixon with that empty sleeve", Johnson said. Humphrey eventually chose Edmund Muskie as his running mate, and lost the  election. According to his chief of staff, Jennifer Sabas, Inouye knew that he was being considered as a vice presidential pick, but was uninterested in the possibility, apparently content with his current position. Family. Inouye married Margaret "Maggie" Shinobu Awamura on June 12, 1949. She died of cancer on March 13, 2006. On May 24, 2008, he married Irene Hirano in a private ceremony in Beverly Hills, California. Hirano was president and founding chief executive officer of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, California. She resigned the position at the time of her marriage, in order to be  closer to her husband. According to the "Honolulu Advertiser", Inouye was 24 years older than Hirano. On May 27, 2010, Hirano was elected chair of the nation's second largest non-profit organization, The Ford Foundation. Hirano outlived him by more than seven years; she died on April 7, 2020. Inouye's son Kenny was the guitarist for the hardcore punk band Marginal Man. Honors. Awards and decorations. On May 27, 1947, Inouye was honorably discharged and returned home as a Captain with a Distinguished Service Cross, Bronze Star Medal, two Purple Hearts, and 12 other medals and citations. In  2000, his Distinguished Service Cross was upgraded to the Medal of Honor. Death. In 2012, Inouye began using a wheelchair in the Senate to preserve his knees, and received an oxygen concentrator to aid his breathing. In November 2012, he suffered a minor cut after falling in his apartment and was treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. On December 6, he was again hospitalized at George Washington University Hospital so doctors could further regulate his oxygen intake, and was transferred to Walter Reed Medical Center on December 10. He died there of respiratory complications seven days later on  December 17, 2012. According to the senator's Congressional website, his last word was "Aloha." Prior to his death, Inouye left a letter encouraging Governor Neil Abercrombie to appoint Colleen Hanabusa to succeed Inouye should he become incapacitated; instead Abercrombie appointed Hawaii's Lieutenant Governor Brian Schatz. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Inouye's death on the floor of the Senate, referring to Inouye as "certainly one of the giants of the Senate." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell referred to Inouye as one of the finest Senators in United States history. President Barack Obama referred to him as a  true American hero. Inouye's body lay in state at the United States Capitol rotunda on December 20, 2012. President Obama, former President Bill Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spoke at a funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral on December 21. Inouye's body was then flown to Hawaii where it lay in state at the Hawaii State Capitol on December 22. A second funeral service was held at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu the following day. Legacy. In 2007, The Citadel dedicated Inouye Hall  at the Citadel/South Carolina Army National Guard Marksmanship Center to Senator Inouye, who helped make the Center possible. In May 2013, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced that the next would be named . The destroyer was officially christened at Bath Iron Works on June 22, 2019. In December 2013, the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope at Haleakala Observatory on Maui was renamed the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope. Numerous federal properties at Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam and around Hawai'i have been dedicated to Senator Inouye, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration "Daniel K. Inouye Regional Center" (2013 ), the Hawaii Air National Guard "Daniel K. Inouye Fighter Squadron Operations & Aircraft Maintenance Facility" (2014), the "Senator Daniel K. Inouye" Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency building (2015), the "Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies" at Fort Derussy (2015), and the Pacific Missile Range Facility "Daniel K. Inouye Range and Operations Center" on Kauai (2016). In 2014, Israel named the simulator room of the Arrow anti-missile defense system in his honor, the first time that a military facility has been named after a foreign national. A Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, tail number 5147, of the 535th Airlift  Squadron, was dedicated "Spirit of Daniel Inouye" on August 20, 2014. The Parade Field at Fort Benning was rededicated to honor Senator Inouye on September 12, 2014. On April 27, 2017, Honolulu's airport was renamed Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in his honor. In 2018, Honolulu-based Matson, Inc. named its newest container ship, the largest built in the United States, the "Daniel K. Inouye". The University of Hawai‘i at Hilo dedicated its pharmacy college the Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy (DKICP) on December 4, 2019. He made a cameo appearance as himself in the 1994 film The  Next Karate Kid. The Daniel K. Inouye Graduate School of Nursing, founded in 1993, is part of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.