Daniel Inouye
Daniel Inouye was a prominent American politician and a highly decorated military veteran, hailing from Hawaii. Born on September 7, 1924, in Honolulu, Inouye was the son of Japanese immigrants and faced significant challenges during his early life, including the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack. He enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II, serving in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a unit composed predominantly of Japanese Americans. Inouye demonstrated extraordinary bravery in combat, suffering severe injuries that resulted in the loss of his right arm, and was later awarded the Medal of Honor for his valor.
Following his military service, Inouye pursued higher education, eventually earning a law degree. He entered politics, becoming Hawaii's first congressman when the state achieved statehood in 1959, and later served as a U.S. Senator for over forty-five years. Throughout his political career, Inouye was involved in significant legislative efforts and investigations, including the Watergate scandal and the Iran-Contra affair. He was known for his commitment to racial understanding and reform, and his legacy continues to be celebrated for his contributions to American society and the political landscape.
Daniel Inouye
Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye, a native of Hawaii, was a highly decorated veteran of World War II. In civilian life, he served as a public prosecutor, a Representative in Hawaii's territorial government, as the state's first US Congressman and as its Senator for more than forty-five years.
Early Life and Education
Daniel Ken Inouye was born on September 7, 1924, in Honolulu, on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. The eldest of four children born to Hyotaro and Kasne Inouye, he was named for the Methodist minister who had adopted his mother. His grandparents emigrated from Japan as migrant workers in Hawaii's sugar cane fields.
Inouye began his education in a Japanese-language school and later entered regular public schools, graduating from McKinley High School in 1942. He worked several jobs during his high school years, parking cars and giving haircuts to fellow students, spending the money on items such as homing pigeons and a chemistry set.
He also took a medical aid training course, and when the Japanese attacked Hawaii's military base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, seventeen year old Inouye worked for a week straight as the head of a first-aid team, saying later that he saw a "lot of blood."
Military Service
In March 1943, when he was eighteen years old, Inouye left the University of Hawaii, where he had been enrolled as a pre-med student, to enlist in the US Army. He was assigned to the 442nd regiment, a unit comprised only of Japanese Americans that later became known as the "Go For Broke" regiment, for the bravery of its soldiers in combat.
Inouye fought in Italy as a Sergeant with the US Fifth Army. He became a platoon leader while fighting in France in 1944, winning the Bronze Star and a commission as a Second Lieutenant. Near the end of the war, while fighting in Italy, he was hit by a bullet in the abdomen and then, after continuing to fight, by a German rifle grenade that eventually cost him his right arm. He again continued to fight, but received another bullet in his leg, immobilizing him.
After the battle, and the loss of his arm, Inouye would spend almost two years recovering in Army hospitals. He was discharged with the rank of Captain in May 1947, with additional honors including the Purple Heart and the military's second highest award for valor, the Distinguished Service Cross.
In the late 1990s, the military reopened the files of Japanese-American soldiers to determine if some should have been awarded higher honors, but had not been so honored because of a lingering prejudice against Japanese-Americans following the war. Following the investigation, Inouye was one of twenty-two Asian-American veterans, seven of whom were still living, to be presented the Medal of Honor, the military's highest award for valor. He received the award from President Bill Clinton in June 2000.
After the war, Inouye returned to the University of Hawaii, earning his BA degree in 1950 with a double major in economics and government. On June 2, 1948, he married Margaret Shinobu Awamura. They had one son, Daniel.
Inouye went on to law school at George Washington University in Washington, DC, earning his degree in 1952. He worked briefly as a deputy public prosecutor in Honolulu before winning election to the Territorial House in 1954. In 1958, he was elected to the Territorial Senate.
Hawaii's First Congressman
On July 28, 1959, Inouye won a special election for a seat in the US House of Representatives. When Hawaii entered the Union as the 50th state about a month later, on August 21, Inouye became Hawaii's first congressman and the nation's first Japanese-American legislator. He won reelection to a full term the following year.
In 1962, Inouye was elected to represent Hawaii in the US Senate. He supported the Democratic platforms of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and was the keynote speaker at the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. His speech, calling for racial understanding and political reform through democratic process, was largely overshadowed by clashes between Vietnam War protestors and Chicago police on the streets outside of the convention.
Watergate and Iran-Contra
Inouye served on the Senate Banking and Agriculture Committees and in 1973, during his second term in the Senate, he was appointed to the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, set up to investigate the Watergate scandal that would later force President Nixon out of office. The televised hearings, lasting into 1974, made Inouye a nationally recognized figure.
He attracted national attention in a similar forum in 1987, as the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition. The committee held hearings on the Iran-Contra affair, a scandal under the Reagan administration that centered on covert arms sales to Iran and the funding of anticommunist rebels in Nicaragua.
Inouye also served on the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the Democratic Steering Committee.
Serving Hawaii
In serving on the Appropriations Committee for more than thirty years, Inouye steered substantial federal funding toward Hawaii, much of it in the form military spending, but also for education, environmental research and other programs. Hawaii often ranked among the top five states in the nation in federal per capita spending during the 1990s.
Inouye was well known in the Senate for his work on behalf of Native Americans through the Committee on Indian Affairs. Although there are no Indian reservations in Hawaii, the history of the state is one of tolerance of many different cultures, including Japanese and Filipinos, leading Inouye to sympathize with the intolerance shown to Native Americans throughout the history of the US. He is also a staunch supporter of Israel. And in support of Hawaii's native peoples, he gained passage of the Native Hawaiian Education Act and the Native Hawaiian Health Care Act.
In 1998, Inouye helped lead Senate efforts to pass legislation, first introduced by Representative Marcy Kaptur, to approve the creation of a World War II memorial on the Mall in Washington, DC.
Other than in one campaign in 1992, during which he was accused by his Republican opponent of sexual misconduct against various women in Honolulu, Inouye always won reelection easily, taking 80 percent of the vote in 1998. He was one of the longest-serving senators in US history and was reelected to the Senate in 2004. His wife Maggie died in March of 2006, and he married his second wife, Irene Hirano, in 2008.
In 2009, Inouye was named chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations. He was reelected to his senate seat in November 2010. During that term, he served as the Senate's president pro tempore, the third person in the presidential line of succession behind the vice president and the speaker of the house. Inouye died on December 17, 2012 at the age of eighty-eight. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013, becoming the only senator to obtain both the Medal of Freedom and the Medal of Honor.
By John Pearson
Bibliography
Bamford, Tyler. "Medal of Honor Recipient Daniel Inouye Led a Life of Service to His Country." The National WWII Museum, 19 July 2020, www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/medal-of-honor-recipient-daniel-inouye. Accessed 30 Apr. 2021.
McFadden, Robert D. "Daniel Inouye, Hawaii's Quiet Voice of Conscience in Senate, Dies at 88." The New York Times, 17 Dec. 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/us/daniel-inouye-hawaiis-quiet-voice-of-conscience-in-senate-dies-at-88.html. Accessed 30 Apr. 2021.
"The Man." Daniel K. Inouye Institute, https://dkii.org/the-man/. Accessed 30 Apr. 2021.