Sen. Daniel Inouye dead at 88

[Obie]

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/17/politics/o...?hpt=hp_t3

[Rob Tucker]

End of an era, that's for sure.

[Hunt Stoddard]

Bad news. I thought he was getting better.

[LeeE]

I'm so sorry to hear of Sen. Inouye's passing. Yes, his passing marks the end of an era.

Senator Inouye was a supporter of my music, back in the day. He once kindly told me that he used to listen to my recordings on his flights to and from DC, to relax. He once hired Brad White and me to play for a relatives wedding.

My deepest condolences to his many friends and family.

When a wonderful human being passes, they say, "May his memory be a blessing". He will be missed and for the people of Hawaii, his memory, which will be a blessing, will live on forever.

Lee Eisenstein
http://members.cruzio.com/~lionel/event

"Be kinder than necessary, as everyone you meet is engaged in some kind of strudel."

[Rob Tucker]

"His last words were, 'Aloha,'" his office said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-...0305.story

[Frank]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWaNFLEZODc....nuff said..

[LeeE]

Wow. Teary eyed chicken skin.

Lee Eisenstein
http://members.cruzio.com/~lionel/event

"Be kinder than necessary, as everyone you meet is engaged in some kind of strudel."

[bananahead]

from Wiki...
"At one point while he was leading an attack, a shot struck him in the chest directly above his heart, but the bullet was stopped by the two silver dollars he happened to have stacked in his shirt pocket.[8] He continued to carry the coins throughout the war in his shirt pocket as good luck charms until he lost them shortly before the battle in which he lost his arm."
...three German machine guns opened fire from covered positions just 40 yards away, pinning his men to the ground. Inouye stood up to attack and was shot in the stomach; ignoring his wound, he proceeded to attack and destroy the first machine gun nest with hand grenades and fire from his Thompson submachine gun. After being informed of the severity of his wound by his platoon sergeant, he refused treatment and rallied his men for an attack on the second machine gun position, which he also successfully destroyed before collapsing from blood loss.
As his squad distracted the third machine gunner, Inouye crawled toward the final bunker, eventually drawing within 10 yards. As he raised himself up and cocked his arm to throw his last grenade into the fighting position, a German inside fired a rifle grenade that struck him on the right elbow, severing most of his arm and leaving his own primed grenade reflexively "clenched in a fist that suddenly didn't belong to me anymore".[10] Inouye's horrified soldiers moved to his aid, but he shouted for them to keep back out of fear his severed fist would involuntarily relax and drop the grenade. As the German inside the bunker reloaded his rifle, Inouye pried the live grenade from his useless right hand and transferred it to his left. As the German aimed his rifle to finish him off, Inouye tossed the grenade off-hand into the bunker and destroyed it. He stumbled to his feet and continued forward, silencing the last German resistance with a one-handed burst from his Thompson before being wounded in the leg and tumbling unconscious to the bottom of the ridge. When he awoke to see the concerned men of his platoon hovering over him, his only comment before being carried away was to gruffly order them to return to their positions, since, as he pointed out, "nobody called off the war!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Inouye

save our indigenous and endemic Hawaiian Plants... learn about them, grow them, and plant them on your property, ....instead of all that invasive non-native garbage I see in most yards... aloha

[spunky]

He will be greatly missed in so many ways.
I've come across a few people in recent years that were saying that a post-Inouye Hawaii will be very different from the one we have now.

I'm not sure how many folks realize just how many hundreds of millions of dollars he funneled into Hawaii for everything from Saddle Rd. to Kauai to Maui projects.

Also going to be very interesting to see the political race that will ensue. But that is for later - for now it is sad to have lost such an esteemed man.

[Kapohocat]

I was so sad to hear this. My prayers for his family.