Kay Bailey Hutchison: “I rise to discuss what an important day today is in the history of our country and also to mention a personal, special…”

“I rise to discuss what an important day today is in the history of our country and also to mention a personal, special time for a Member of our Senate on Pearl Harbor Day. And that is Senator Dan Inouye. Dan Inouye was 17 years old, living in Hawaii, on the day that Pearl Harbor was attacked. He was one of the first Americans to go forward to try to help with the casualties that occurred that day. But Dan Inouye has said on several occasions that he looked up into the sky and he knew that the people who were bombing his country were people who looked like him. And he said he knew that his world had changed forever from that day. Dan Inouye, at the age of 18, was a freshman in premedical studies at the University of Hawaii but dropped out to enlist in 1943 in the U.S. Army. Danny Inouye was not just another enlistee in the U.S. Army. He was one of the great heroes of World War II. He spent two of the bloodiest weeks of the war in France rescuing a Texas battalion that had been surrounded by German forces. This was known as 'the lost battalion' and is listed in the U.S. Army annals as one of the most significant military battles of the century. He won the Bronze Star, but that was not the end. He went to Italy and became involved in the war in Italy and was trying to assault a heavily defended hill in the closing months of the war. Lieutenant Inouye was hit in his abdomen by a bullet which came out his back, barely missing his spine.”