Daniel Inouye...

Now that guy is grizzled. That's all I have to say about that.

But what an eloquent speaker...

BTW...You have mail!

:hi:

In March 1943, 18-year-old Dan Inouye, then a freshman in pre-medical studies at the University of Hawaii, enlisted in the U.S. Army's 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the famed "Go For Broke" regiment.

Inouye was soon promoted to the rank of Sergeant and was designated as a combat platoon leader during the Italian campaign. He slogged through nearly three bloody months of the Rome Arno campaign with the U.S. Fifth Army.

In the fall of 1944, Inouye's unit was shifted to the French Vosges Mountains and spent two of the bloodiest weeks of the war rescuing a Texas Battalion surrounded by German forces. The rescue of "The Lost Battalion" is listed in the U.S. Army annals as one of the most significant military battles of the century. Inouye lost ten pounds, became a platoon leader and won the Bronze Star and a battlefield commission as a Second Lieutenant.

Back in Italy, the 442nd was assaulting a heavily defended hill in the closing months of the war when Lieutenant Inouye was hit in his abdomen by a bullet which came out his back, barely missing his spine. He continued to lead the platoon and advanced alone against a machine gun nest which had his men pinned down. He tossed two hand grenades with devastating effect before his right arm was shattered by a German rifle grenade at close range. Inouye threw his last grenade with his left hand, attacked with a submachine gun and was finally knocked down the hill by a bullet in the leg.

Dan Inouye spent 20 months in Army hospitals after losing his right arm. On May 27, 1947, he was honorably discharged and returned home as a Captain with a Distinguished Service Cross (the second highest award for military valor), Bronze Star, Purple Heart with cluster and 12 other medals and citations.

His Distinguished Service Cross was recently upgraded to a Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for military valor. He received that medal from the President of the United States on June 21, 2000.

http://www.senate.gov/~inouye/bio.html

in a very sad way, his persistence to carry on as an American; that whole documentary has flushed me, even as young as i am, having lived with my daddy who brought several bombers home after mission over Germany, landing in allied occupied France on wings & prayers...so sad, it is all so very sad the whole of it is tearing even me up and i am nobody :cry:

Glenn Frazier's story...tossing his dogtags in a grave, then being confirmed dead to his parents..particularly got to me. His autobiography has been published. It's called "Hell's Guest". I want to read this book.

:hug:

Frazier's story is a most amazing one :hug:

:patriot:

And most of us, I dare say, didn't spend our teens and twenties saving the world. I'm just saying...

I've always thought of him as my Senator, even though I moved to California in 1979...

The man is a genuine hero.

Hekate

...in which Inouye talks about his experiences in the military. He says his father admonished him not to dishonor the country and in particular not to dishonor the family, which is quite a burden for a guy still in his teens to assume.

All of them are Democrats...

And how quick the Republicans are to dismiss them.

...was devoted to veteran-bashing. Remember that nasty-looking woman with the purple heart Band-Aids on her face?

But word is that Daniel Inouye and Robert Dole have been good buddies since they served in World War II (and both came home handicapped).

i will never ever forget her name or her ass face. She's got quite a history.

I think one of them is Bob Kerrey (former senator of NE)...

Who else is there?

He waved his finger and said that disagreeing with ones government is not unpatriotic. The RW columnists and TV personalities were all over him. How dare this politician lecture a Marine colonel about patriotism?

The account of Inouye's actions in WWII put a whole new polish on that matter. North must have known it at the time. It's as if Inouye was saying, "You know why I can tell you this, asshole."

He was a survivor of the Malmedy massacre during the Battle of the Bulge