The President Pro Tem and the Gothic Line

The USS Shaw explodes during the Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor

On December 7^th, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.  One of the teenage medical volunteers who assisted the many wounded American servicemen that day (and on days after) was Daniel Inouye, the son of Japanese immigrants who had moved to Hawaii looking for a better life. As soon as Japanese-Americans were allowed to enlist, Inouye suspended his pre-medical studies and joined the U.S. Army where he was assigned to the Nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

U.S. Army painting of the Nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team rescuing elements of the 1st Battalion, 141st Regiment, 36th (Texas) Division, trapped by German forces in the Vosges Mountains

In 1944, Inouye fought in the Rome-Arno Campaign and then in the Vosges Mountains of France, where the 442^ndwas given what amounted to a suicide mission: rescuing the Lost Battalion (a battalion of the 141st Infantry Regiment which was ambushed and surrounded by vastly superior force of German veterans).   During that fight, Inouye was shot directly in the chest, but the bullet was stopped by two silver dollars which he had in his shirt pocket.  The Nisei 442nd suffered over 800 casualties on that day (and, in fact, went on to become the most decorated unit in Army history).  Inouye was given a bronze star and promoted to second lieutenant–which was most meaningful to him because the commission meant he got to carry a Thompson submachine gun into battle.

On April 21, 1945, Lieutenant Inouye was back in Italy storming a German fortification on the Gothic Line (the last line of German defenses in Italy).  During a flanking maneuver, at a heavily armed ridge named Colle Musatello, his platoon was pinned down between 3 machine gun nests.  As Inouye attacked the first nest, he was shot in the stomach.  His wound did not prevent him from throwing grenades into the first gun placement and then rushing in to finish off the German soldiers with his machine gun.   Refusing treatment, Inouye attacked the second machine gun nest in the same fashion and successfully destroyed it.

As the other men of his squadron attacked the third machine-gun placement, Inouye silently crawled within ten yards of the position and primed a grenade to throw into the bunker.  Unfortunately he was spotted by a German soldier who shot a rifle grenade through Inouye’s right elbow.  This meant that Inouye was clutching the live explosive in a hand over which he had no control as the German reloaded to finish him off.  Inouye’s astonished soldiers report that the lieutenant ordered them back, then pried the grenade from his own dead arm, and cast it off-hand into the final bunker.   After the bunker exploded, Inouye then mopped up with his Tommy gun and charged the main line.  Shot in the leg he tumbled to the bottom of the ridge and blacked out.   When he came to, the concerned men of his platoon were all around him, but he ordered them back to position with the exhortation that “nobody called off the war!”

During the action at Colle Musatello, Inouye reputedly killed 25 Germans (and wounded 8 more) while being shot in the abdomen & the leg and despite having his right arm mostly shot off (the shattered remains were amputated at a field hospital without proper anesthesia ).  While he was convalescing from these wounds, Daniel Inouye met other many other badly wounded men including future Senators Philip Hart and Bob Dole (who became a lifelong friend).

Inouye remained in the army until 1947 and he was honorably discharged with the rank of captain.  For his actions he was awarded many different awards including the Distinguished Service Cross, which was later upgraded to the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Although his ruined arm meant that his ambitions of becoming a surgeon were ended, he studied political science at Honolulu and then earned a law degree with honors from George Washington University Law School in Washington.  Daniel Inouye was the first Hawaiian congressman when the state joined the Union in 1959 and he was elected to the US Senate in 1962.  He is now the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.  A long-standing tradition is that the most senior member of the majority party serves as president pro tempore of the US Senate, so Inouye, a democrat, is third in line for the US Presidency (after Biden and Boehner).   If some appalling disaster brought him to the office, he would no doubt hunt down the malefactors and destroy them utterly (possibly with his own bare hand).

Joe Biden, Bob Dole, Dan Inouye, and Pat Roberts at a WWII Plaque Dedication

In this era, the political parties of the United States of America are bitterly divided.  Whatever happens in today’s election is unlikely to change the long stalemate or foster friendship across the aisle.  Things have sometimes been like this in the past—as when Democratic-Republicans locked horns with Federalists or when Whigs fought acrimoniously with the Jacksonian Democratic Party—yet I feel that is dangerous and shameful to have our leaders so deeply divided.  There have been happier and more productive times too. Today Daniel Inouye is a bizarre and ancient political dinosaur, but he rhapsodizes about warm friendships with colleagues of all political stripes.

Politicians, don’t forget core lessons about unity.

I would like to congratulate the victors in today’s election and wish them every success in their honored positions of leadership.  The United States is in need of their finest effort and hardest work. However, I would also like to draw their attention to Daniel Inouye in order to remind them of America’s shared tradition of sacrifice, compromise, and friendship (& badass heroism).

Advertisement