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As a result, on June 21, 2000, Inouye and 19 other Japanese American veterans of the 442nd Regiment were awarded the Medal of Honor by President Bill Clinton. Daniel Inouye died on December 17, 2012, at the age of 88. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his lifelong public service.

Daniel Inouye, American Democratic politician who was the first U.S. representative of Hawaii (1959–63) and who later served as a U.S. senator (1963–2012). He was the first Japanese American to serve in both bodies of Congress. Inouye was born to working-class parents of Japanese ancestry.

Daniel K. Inouye: A Featured Biography Daniel K. Inouye was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on September 7, 1924, received his undergraduate degree from the University of Hawaii, and his law degree from George Washington University. During World War II, Inouye served in the U.S. Army’s 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

Daniel K. Inouye was a Japanese American soldier with the 442nd Infantry Regiment during World War II who rose to become the highest-ranking U.S. Senator when he died in 2012. Wally McNamee/Corbis via Getty Images Senator Daniel Inouye in his U.S. Capitol office on August 4, 1964.

On April 21, 1945 Lieutenant Inouye was leading a flanking attack on a heavily-defended ridge near San Terenzo in Tuscany, Italy. The American platoon was in turn flanked in a surprise ambush by three MG-43 machine guns at relatively close range. Inouye’s platoon of 30 men was being cut to pieces.