Senator Daniel K Inouye

Hawaii mourns the loss of Senator Inouye. His life was one of remarkable achievement and service to the state and the country. He was witness to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and, as soon as it was allowed, joined the Army as a member of the legendary 442nd Regimental Combat Team. It was a segregated unit made up of Japanese Americans and became the most decorated unit in the US military. He lost his right arm in combat in the Italian theater winning the Distinguished Service Cross, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart. He was also awarded the Medal of Honor by President Clinton in 2000.

After the war, he served in both the House of Representatives and the Senate for the Territory of Hawaii. When statehood arrived, he was elected to the US House of Representatives and three years later was elected to the US Senate where he served until his passing. He came to the attention of the nation as a whole because of his intelligent and reasoned performance as a member of the Select Committee looking into the Watergate scandal.

He brought attention and influence to this small state as well as a lot of Federal support and money.

Aloha Senator Inouye.

 

Hi Ed

Why a Democrat? Please understand that I am in way over my head here, but I will make a stab at the question. Before the war Hawaii was run by big business,sugar, and pineapple. People from other countries were brought to Hawaii as contract laborers to work in the fields. They were not treated with much respect nor dignity. The big business and plantations could be generalized as Republican. After the war, the soldiers from the various immigrant groups returned to Hawaii with a newfound appreciation of the wider world and their own worth and strength. They worked together and took control of the Republican dominated Territorial Legislature in the early 1950's. Most of these people were the sons and daughters of contract laborers and they were determined to make life better for all the disenfranchised people.

I don't think Senator Inouye thought of the internment as a Republican or Democrat issue. I think that he saw the USA as whole made a questionable decision during a time of great national stress. I don't think he nor his family was ever in danger of internment. Most Hawaiian citizens of Japanese ancestry were also left alone. Internment was more widespread on the mainland. Senator Inouye continued in high school, graduating in 1942. He started medical studies at the University of Hawaii, but left the school to enlist in the Army in 1943.

I remember hearing a local radio interview with him telling of retuning to Hawaii after the war. He walked into a San Francisco barbershop in his uniform with an empty sleeve and the barber refused to cut his hair. He came home and set about representing all the people, but especially those that had been at the margins of society for so long.

 

Senator Inouye was laid to rest yesterday at Punchbowl, The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

President Obama was in attendance.

The picture is of the F-22 Raptors as they approached the rim of Punchbowl Crater, just before one of the jets went nearly vertical to form the missing man formation.
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