The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.

Friday, December 28, 2012

U.S. Senator and War Hero Daniel Inouye Dies

From Dec. 18, 2012, AP

Died Dec. 17th at age 88.

On December 7, 1941, he and his Japanese-American friends on Hawaii, knew they were in trouble.  They wanted to go to war and fight for their country and be accepted.  "I felt that there was a need for us to demonstrate that we're just as good as anybody else," he said.

He had a dream of becoming a surgeon, but that was lost in Germany along with his right arm in 1945.  His platoon came under fire.  He was shot in the stomach while drawing a grenade.  Even wounded as he was, he climbed up a hill and took out two German machine gun bests and was getting ready to throw a grenade at a third one when a rifle grenade fired by a German just ten yards away hit his right elbow.

He grabbed the grenade, pulled the pin, tossed it back and it blew up in the German's face.

He later served thirty years as U.S. senator from Hawaii after it became a state.

The Greatest Generation.  --GreGen

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