Instead of complaining about one thing or another...
Every now and again Daniel Inouye ("ee-noh-ay") shows up in my consciousness, whether because of news or social media or TV or whatever.
If they made a movie just about this guy's war service people would dismiss it as beyond the pale.
Dude is told he can't enlist because he's effectively an enemy of the country of his birth, being of Japanese descent. Dude continues to insist on enlisting. Finally, government decides to form the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, enlisted soldiers of Japanese descent, white officers. Sends to Europe, rather than fighting the Japanese in the Pacific.
He and the 442nd are sent to break through to the "Lost Battalion," a battalion of the 141st Infantry, formerly the Texas National Guard. The rest of the 141st weren't able to get to the battalion surrounded by the German military. The 442nd is sent in. By the time the fighting is over, the 211 remaining soldiers in the Lost Battalion are rescued, and the 3000 man-442nd is down to 800 at fighting strength. Platoon Sergeant Inouye receives the Bronze Star for valor and is promoted with a battlefield commission to second lieutenant. He credits two silver dollars with stopping a bullet that hit him in the chest.
After some rest, the 442nd is sent to Italy to help break the German's "Gothic Line," a heavily defended region in the mountains. He leads his platoon up the hill, and while attempting to flank part of the German defenses, three fortified German machine gun positions open up on the platoon from a distance of 40 yards. Lieutenant Inouye gets up to attack and is shot in the stomach. He crawls to within five yards of the first position and takes it out with his grenades. Then he charges the second and guns the Germans down with his Thompson submachine gun. One machine gun emplacement to go.
He crawls from the second nest toward the third and final position and gets to ten yards away. A first down away. So far, this is your Hollywood war epic. Now is the part you wouldn't believe if Hollywood told you it happened: he grabs a grenade, pulls the pin, and...
A German rifle grenade, fired from that ten-yard distance, hits the elbow of his throwing arm--but doesn't explode. It does, however, sever the hand, still clutching the now live grenade, from his body. he uses his left hand to peel the grenade out of his severed right hand, and throws it at the third machine gun bunker, killing the soldier who just shot him with the rifle grenade, and then gets up and charges the position, killing another German with his Thompson in his left hand. He's shot--again--this time in the leg, and loses consciousness, while his platoon overruns the enemy.
Because he's had so much morphine while on the field of battle, he doesn't get any further sedation for his field surgery--during which is he conscious.
Goes home, becomes the first American of Japanese descent to serve in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, where he was widely respected by folks on both sides of the aisle.*
*Side note, in the hospital recovering from his injuries he meets and befriends future Senators Bob Dole and Philip Hart.
