Mike Huckabee

After word came Monday night of the death of Sen. Daniel Inouye at 88, everyone recounted his remarkable political career. Elected to the House the year Hawaii became a state. The first Japanese-American Senator, serving 50 years in the Senate, second only to Robert Byrd. But there was another side to Daniel Inouye that deserves to be eulogized, too. He was a high school senior when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. He said he knew that Japanese-Americans would have to prove themselves by going to war for America and showing they were just as good as anyone else. And he did, earning the Medal of Honor, the Bronze Star and the Distinguished Service Cross.

In his final battle in Italy, Inouye kept crawling up a hill even after he was shot in the stomach. He went on to take out two German machine gun nests before a grenade blew his right arm off. With his left hand, he pried a grenade out of his severed right hand and threw it at a German soldier who was reloading to finish him off. That battle ended his dreams of being a surgeon and forced him to find a new career: politics. As Lyndon Johnson once said, no political opponent could ever question Daniel Inouye’s patriotism, because he answered that with his empty sleeve.