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Sen. Daniel Inouye, 1924 - 2012
12/18/2012
WASHINGTON
– “Our country has lost a true American hero with the passing of Sen. Daniel
Inouye,” President Obama said following the senator’s death last night. The
88-year-old Hawaii Democrat succumbed to respiratory complications at Walter
Reed Medical Center. He served as the senior senator for Hawaii since the
islands became a state. Inouye, an American of Japanese descent, was also a war
hero who lost his right arm to a grenade blast in the European theater during
World War II and continued to bring down a German machine-gun nest. His
military accolades include the Medal of Honor, the Bronze Star, a Purple Heart
and others. Inouye released this statement on Dec. 7, the 71st anniversary
of the attack on Pearl Harbor, thanking the late President Roosevelt for
allowing him to serve the country:
In 1941, the date Dec. 7 was
a day that evoked anger, fierce patriotism and dangerous racism. Soon after
that day, I suddenly found myself, pursuant to a decision by the government and
along with thousands of Japanese Americans declared 4C, enemy aliens. It was a
difficult time. I was 17.
I joined many of my classmates and sent petitions to the government, pleading
for the opportunity to fight. We wanted to affirm our loyalty and pride of
citizenship. The request was granted in the final days of 1942.
The government decided to form a combat team made up of young Americans of
Japanese Ancestry, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. In Hawaii, they asked for
1,500 volunteers. About 10,000 signed up, more than 85 percent of the eligible
Japanese American males in Hawaii.
The day I rushed down to the draft board to volunteer, I was a freshmen in
college. I was a pre-medicine major. There were 36 AJA’s in my class, 34
volunteered, and all were wounded or killed. As a result, after the war, there
were very few AJA doctors in Hawaii.
During one of our first fights, my best friend, Jin Hatsu Chinen, was killed in
an artillery barrage. We were to open a clinic in Honolulu together after the
war. He was teaching me to play the guitar. His death, reminded me, reminded
all of us, of the magnitude and cost of the war we were fighting.
The 442nd went on to become the most decorated unit of its size in the history
of the United States Army, but we suffered horrific losses and those of us
lucky to survive the fight swore we would live life for our brothers who did
not come home. I shall always be grateful to President Roosevelt for giving us
the opportunity to demonstrate our love of country.
On this day, let us remember all those who have had the courage to put on the
uniform and sacrifice for our great nation. Our way of life has always, and
will always be, protected and preserved by volunteers willing to give their
lives for what we believe in. I thank each of you for your service to the
nation, I thank you for your many sacrifices, and I thank you for being an
American patriot.
President Obama, who grew up in Hawaii, referred to the senior senator as
“Danny.”
“The second-longest serving Senator in the history of the chamber, Danny
represented the people of Hawaii in congress from the moment they joined the
Union,” the President’s statement said. “In Washington, he worked to strengthen
our military, forge bipartisan consensus, and hold those of us in government
accountable to the people we were elected to serve. But it was his incredible
bravery during World War II – including one heroic effort that cost him his arm
but earned him the Medal of Honor – that made Danny not just a colleague and a
mentor, but someone revered by all of us lucky enough to know him. Our thoughts
and prayers are with the Inouye family.”
A long time
member of the Senate Commerce Committee and its chairman from 2007 to 2009,
Inouye helped oversee the DTV transition with his friend and Republican
colleague, the late Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska. Stevens chaired Commerce before
Inouye’s term, and both men considered themselves co-chairmen during their
respective tenures. Stevens passed away as the result of a plane crash in 2010.
Our friendship was a very special one,” Inouye said of
Stevens. “When it came to policy, we disagreed more often than we agreed, but
we were never disagreeable with one another.”
Sen. John D. Rockefeller (D-Va.), current chairman of the Commerce Committee,
issued a statement attributed to he and his wife, Sharon:
“Each of us in the Senate has lost a piece of ourselves with the passing of
Senator Inouye. He has been a total mentor and great friend to me since I came to
the Senate. I’m truly honored to have had the opportunity to know him so well. His
life is a testament to what true patriotism, hard work, and courage embody. His
heroic legacy will live on as a symbol of the great work that one man can do
and it is something that we all strive to achieve. He has made the state of
Hawaii, his country, and this chamber proud. Our thoughts and prayers go out to
his beautiful wife, Irene, his family, and his friends. Sen. Daniel Inouye was
a very great American.”
Inouye will be succeeded as president
pro temp of the Senate by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), now the senior
senator in the chamber. The confirming resolution was passed last night. He is reported
to have named his preferred successor in the Senate as Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, a
first-term Democrat representing Hawaii in Congress.
Peter Boylan, Sen. Inouye’s long-time spokesman, wrote that when asked in
recent days how he would want to be remembered, the senator replied, “I
represented the people of Hawaii and this nation honestly and to the best of my
ability. I think I did OK.”
His last word was, “Aloha.”
~ Deborah D. McAdams
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