Daniel Ken Inouye (/iːˈnoʊˌeɪ/ ee-NOH-ay,[1] Japanese: 井上 建,[2] September 7, 1924 – December 17, 2012) was an American attorney, soldier, and politician who served as a United States senator from Hawaii from 1963 until his death in 2012.

After the United States declared war on Japan the next day, Inouye took up a paid job from his Red Cross supervisor to work there as a medical aide.

The United States Department of War had declared all Japanese-Americans as "enemy aliens", which stipulated they could not volunteer or be drafted for military service.

[21] While in Mississippi, the unit visited the Rohwer War Relocation Center in Arkansas, where Inouye witnessed the internment of Japanese Americans first hand.

[26][24] During the battle, a shot struck him in the chest directly above his heart, but the bullet was stopped by the two silver dollars he happened to have stacked in his shirt pocket.

[28] The 442nd spent the next several months near Nice, guarding the French-Italian border until early 1945, when they were called to Northern Italy to assist with an assault on German strongholds in the Apennine Mountains.

[26] On April 21, 1945, Inouye was grievously wounded while leading an assault on the heavily defended Colle Musatello ridge near San Terenzo, Italy.

This injury left Inouye disabled, in terrible pain, under fire with minimal cover and staring at a live grenade "clenched in a fist that suddenly didn't belong to me anymore.

Stumbling to his feet, Inouye continued forward, killing at least one more German before sustaining his fifth and final wound of the day in his left leg.

[31] The remainder of Inouye's mutilated right arm was later amputated at a field hospital without proper anesthesia, as he had been given too much morphine at an aid station and it was feared any more would lower his blood pressure enough to kill him.

[31] Shortly before the Japanese surrender and end of World War II in August 1945, Inouye was shipped back to the United States to recover for eleven months at a rehabilitation center for wounded soldiers in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Inouye had been talked into joining the party by John A. Burns, a former police captain and future governor, who had ties to the Japanese American community.

[60] In March 1981, Inouye was one of 24 elected officials to issue a joint statement calling on the Reagan administration to compose a method of finding a peaceful solution that would end The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

[61] In July 1981, a Federal commission began hearings to decide on rewarding compensations to Japanese-Americans placed in internment camps during World War II, Inouye and fellow Hawaii Senator Spark M. Matsunaga delivering opening statements.

[62] In November, during an appearance at the opening of a 10-day public forum at Tufts University on Japanese internment, Inouye stated his opposition to distributing reparation fees for Japanese-Americans previously incarcerated during World War II, adding that it "would be insulting even to try to do so.

Inouye confirmed that he had received telephone calls regarding Williams critiquing his remarks during his defense of himself the previous week and questioned if the Senate was going to punish him "because his presentation was rambling, not in the tradition of Daniel Webster" and for his wife believing in him.

[69] On December 23, Inouye voted against[70] a 5 cent a gallon increase in gasoline taxes across the U.S. imposed to aid the financing of highway repairs and mass transit.

[74][75] In August, Inouye secured the acceptance of the Senate's defense appropriations subcommittee for an amendment meant to cure mainland milk arriving at Hawaiian and Alaskan military bases sour, arguing thousands of gallons of milk coming from the mainland must be dumped due to their souring and said shipments were arriving eight days after pasteurization.

[76] In February 1989, after Oliver North went on trial in Federal District Court amid accusations that he illegally diverted profits from the secret sale of arms to Iran to the Nicaraguan rebels, Jack Brooks, then-chair of the House Oversight Committee, questioned North's role in composing a "contingency plan in the event of an emergency that would suspend the American Constitution."

[81] In 2014, two years after Inouye's death, senator Kirsten Gillibrand from New York wrote in her autobiography about a male colleague who squeezed her waist and commented: "Don't lose too much weight now.

[88][89] The former staffer told about how Inouye initiated with asking her to rub his shoulders in his office, continuing with him later trying to put his hand on her leg once when in an automobile.

During a trip to the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, after a late-night simulcast to Hawaii, he asked her if she was hungry, and offered her a ride, inviting her to a late dinner in his room.

[90] A state lawmaker, who learned about the 1992 accusations through a PBS television program, questioned the 2016 renaming of the Honolulu International Airport after Inouye.

They declined seeking the renaming while receiving criticism from within and outside the Hawaii Democratic party for labeling Inouye as "an accused serial rapist.

He answers your problems with (Republican presumptive presidential nominee and former vice president Richard) Nixon with that empty sleeve", Johnson said.

[98] According to his chief of staff, Jennifer Sabas, Inouye knew that he was being considered as a vice presidential pick, but was uninterested in the possibility, apparently content with his current position.

Hirano was president and founding chief executive officer of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, California.

In November 2012, Inouye sustained a minor cut after falling in his apartment and was treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

[132] Inouye made a cameo appearance as himself in the 1994 film The Next Karate Kid, giving the opening speech at Arlington National Cemetery for a commendation for Japanese-Americans who fought in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II.

[150] In August 2021, while visiting Japan for the Tokyo Olympics, First Lady Jill Biden dedicated a room in the U.S. ambassador's residence to Inouye and his wife, Irene.