The US declared martial law in Hawaii in 1941 and began interning Japanese-Americans the year after, but that did not deter Daniel Inouye from enlisting in the US Army at the age of 18 in 1943.
Inouye, who died Monday at 88, spent seven decades in service to his country in the Army and in Congress, where he lay in state yesterday, a rare honor even for a man with so long a career in Washington.
Inouye represented Hawaii before it was a state, becoming a member of its territorial legislature in 1954. He was elected Hawaii’s first congressman when it joined the union in 1959 and was a senator from 1963 until his passing this week.
But well before that, in the Army’s 442nd Infantry Regiment, an all-Japanese-American fighting unit, he distinguished himself with an astonishing act of bravery.
In April 1945, then-2nd Lt. Inouye led his platoon in an assault on three German machine gun nests along a ridge near San Terenzo, Italy. Shot in the stomach, he ignored his wounds, destroying two bunkers with grenades.
As he approached the last German bunker, his right arm was nearly blown off by the enemy. But he then destroyed the last German gun, also with a grenade.
In 2000, President Clinton awarded Inouye the Medal of Honor for “his gallant, aggressive tactics and . . . indomitable leadership” that earned him laurels and cost him an arm, which was later amputated.
Sen. Inouye was a man rough in war and gentle in peace, who never refused his country’s call to duty. RIP.