Rest in peace, Daniel Inouye

[jdhowland]

This man has served his country well and demonstrated the courage we all wish we had.

[GeneChing]

My grandfather was a colonel for the 100th Battalion, the Purple Heart Battalion, and he gave me his purple heart medal.

If you know WWII history, you know why this is significant.

[jdhowland]

[QUOTE=GeneChing;1202527]My grandfather was a colonel for the 100th Battalion, the Purple Heart Battalion, and he gave me his purple heart medal. QUOTE]

Wow. Great connection to history. Do you have any personal anecdotes about him?

As for Inouye, I got to meet him once and hear him speak. Just an exchange of greetings, I didn't really know him. On the surface he wasn't very imposing. Didn't stand out in a crowd. But, My God! what that man experienced in his life!

What is it with my admiration for small, one-armed Hawai'ian Asian men? Reminds me of someone...

[sanjuro_ronin]

Honors and decorations

On June 21, 2000, Inouye was presented the Medal of Honor by President Bill Clinton for his service during World War II

Also in 2000, Inouye was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun by the Emperor of Japan, in recognition of his long and distinguished career in public service.[22]

In 2006, the U S Navy Memorial awarded Inouye its Naval Heritage award for his support of the U S Navy and the military during his terms in the Senate.

In 2007, Inouye was personally inducted as a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by President of France Nicolas Sarkozy

In February 2009, a bill was filed in the Philippine House of Representatives by Rep. Antonio Diaz seeking to confer honorary Filipino citizenship on Inouye, Senators Ted Stevens and Daniel Akaka and Representative Bob Filner, for their role in securing the passage of benefits for Filipino World War II veterans.[23]

In June 2011, Inouye was appointed a Grand Cordon of the Order of the Paulownia Flowers, the highest Japanese honor which may be conferred upon a foreigner who is not a head of state. Only the seventh American to be so honored, he is also the first American of Japanese descent to receive it. The conferment of the order was "to recognize his continued significant and unprecedented contributions to the enhancement of goodwill and understanding between Japan and the United States."[24]

In 2011, Philippine president Benigno Aquino III conferred Order of Sikatuna upon Inouye. He had previously been awarded Order of Lakandula and a Philippine Republic Presidential Unit Citation.[25]

Inouye was inducted as an honorary member of the Navajo Nation and titled "The Leader Who Has Returned With a Plan"

[sanjuro_ronin]

Inouye was at the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 as a medical volunteer.[5]

In 1943, when the U.S. Army dropped its enlistment ban on Japanese Americans, Inouye curtailed his premedical studies at the University of Hawaii and enlisted in the Army.[5] He volunteered to be part of the all-Nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team.[6] This army unit was mostly made up of second-generation Japanese Americans from Hawaii and the mainland.[7]

Inouye was promoted to the rank of sergeant within his first year, and he was given the role of platoon leader. 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 was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant for his actions there. 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.[8] 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.[9]
Inouye as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army

On April 21, 1945, Inouye was grievously wounded while leading an assault on a heavily-defended ridge near San Terenzo in Tuscany, Italy called Colle Musatello. The ridge served as a strongpoint along the strip of German fortifications known as the Gothic Line, which represented 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 just 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 fire from his Thompson submachine gun. After being informed of the severity of his wound by his platoon sergeant, he refused treatment and rallied his men for an attack on the second machine gun position, which he also successfully destroyed before collapsing from blood loss.

As his squad distracted the third machine gunner, Inouye crawled toward the final bunker, eventually drawing within 10 yards. As he raised himself up and ****ed his arm to throw his last grenade into the fighting position, a German inside the bunker fired a rifle grenade that struck him on the right elbow, severing most of his arm and leaving his own primed grenade reflexively "clenched in a fist that suddenly didn't belong to me anymore".[10] 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 reloaded his rifle, Inouye pried the live grenade from his useless right hand and transferred it to his left. As the German aimed his rifle to finish him off, Inouye tossed the grenade off-hand into the bunker and destroyed it. He stumbled to his feet and continued forward, silencing the last German resistance with a one-handed burst from his Thompson before being wounded in the leg and tumbling unconscious to the bottom of the ridge. When he awoke to see the concerned men of his platoon hovering over him, his only comment before being carried away was to gruffly order them to return to their positions, since, as he pointed out, "nobody called off the war!"[11]

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.[12]

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 of his leaving 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 were believed to have been denied proper recognition of their bravery due to their race).[13] His story, along with interviews with him about the war as a whole, were featured prominently in the 2007 Ken Burns documentary The War.[14]

While recovering from war wounds and the amputation of his right forearm from the grenade wound (mentioned above) at Percy Jones Army Hospital, Inouye met future Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole, then a fellow patient. While at the same hospital, Inouye also met future fellow Democrat and 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 WWII veteran

[GeneChing]

Wow. Great connection to history. Do you have any personal anecdotes about him?

I don't think we ever met. I may have attended a function or two where Inouye was present, but I can't remember for sure.

[jdhowland]

I don't think we ever met. I may have attended a function or two where Inouye was present, but I can't remember for sure.

Sorry, I meant any stories from your grandfather.

[GeneChing]

My gramps was quite a character. It's not stuff I'd care to share here though.

[GeneChing]

...apparently I'm very distantly related to Inouye. Some distant relative of his married some distant relative of mine. My mom knew his family very well. She didn't know him that well, but she hung out with his family when she was in middle school. I was surprised to learn this. I never knew.