Way Past Middle-aged and Still Energized
September 17, 2004
Hawai‘i’s two U.S. senators each turned 80 in the same week — Sen. Daniel Inouye on Sept. 7 and Sen. Daniel Akaka on Sept. 11. Neither plans to slow down, with Inouye running for an eighth term this fall and Akaka planning to run again in two years when his current term expires.
Akaka Plans to Seek Re-election in ’06
By Ron Staton
Associated Press
HONOLULU — As he turned 80, Sen. Daniel Akaka has retirement on his mind — but certainly not his own.
Hawai‘i’s junior senator is quick to point out: “I should tell you I’m looking forward to running in 2006.”
Akaka, a World War II veteran, said he is concerned as a member of the Senate Veterans Committee about “the third R” — retirement — because he wants to help soldiers make a “seamless” transition from active duty to veterans services.
Akaka says he is proud of the accomplishments of his five children and that he wouldn’t be where he is without Millie, his wife of 56 years, and he brags a bit about his 14 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Daniel Kahikina Akaka, known to family and close friends as Danny, has served as the U.S. Senate’s only Chinese American since he was appointed to replace the late Sen. Spark Matsunaga in 1990.
However, since Sept. 11, 2001, Akaka’s birthday has been under a shadow.
His staff had been preparing to set out food and cake in his Washington office that day, but after the terrorist attacks, the Capitol was evacuated.
“The party ended with the attacks, and no one ate the cake,” Akaka says, adding that his two birthday observances since then have been low-key.
“There are many things I would like to continue to work on that would benefit Hawai‘i and the country,” the former educator and Kawaiahao Church choirmaster says.
“The Native Hawaiian bill is still pending and is something I will continue to work on,” he says of the bill that has taken on his name.
Akaka’s proudest achievement is getting the Medal of Honor for 22 WWII veterans of the 100th Infantry Regiment and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, including Hawai‘i’s senior senator, Daniel Inouye.
“The two units had received the most Purple Hearts but only one Medal of Honor,” he says. “I thought they deserved more.”
Akaka started with 125 nominees, and after five years, 21 were approved. After a ceremony was scheduled, Akaka heard about another person who should have been included but was turned down because of a Pentagon policy that a person was not eligible if he did not carry a gun.
“This man was a medic out in the field under fire, dragging guys back. It wasn’t whether he carried a gun but what he did.”
Akaka pressed the issue and a week before the medals were to be presented, the 22nd person was approved. “I feel good about it,” Akaka states with pride.
His biggest disappointment, he said, has been his failure to win benefits for Filipino veterans.
He has been working on the effort since his early years in Congress, but he and others who also have tried haven’t been successful. “That’s very sad,” he says.
“Many Filipino veterans are passing on,” he says. “Those in Hawai‘i receive other benefits, but those in the Philippines don’t get anything.”
Sen. Inouye, Grandfather-in-waiting
By B.J. Reyes
Associated Press
HONOLULU — In his office, significant honors over eight decades — college diplomas, civic honors, the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star and other military awards for valor — overshadow the tiny scrap of yellowed paper set off to the side.
“This I’m proudest about, above all else,” Sen. Daniel Inouye says, pointing out the “junior police officer” certificate he received in elementary school.
His humor is part of the style that has helped the seven-term Democrat and third most senior senator become arguably the most powerful politician Hawai‘i has ever seen.
On Sept. 7, the decorated World War II veteran known to constituents simply as “Dan” did not take time off to celebrate his milestone 80th birthday.
“I’ll go to my office because we resume our session on that day — it’s a Tuesday,” he says.
Inouye’s work has kept him busy since he was elected as the first U.S. House member from the new state of Hawai‘i in 1959. He was elected to a full term in 1960 before winning his Senate seat in 1962.
All of this after his distinguished service in World War II, when he served with the Army’s storied, “go for broke” 442nd Regimental Combat Team made up almost entirely of Japanese Americans. The experience cost him his right arm, which was shredded by a German rifle grenade as he led an attack in Italy that killed 25 Germans and captured eight others.
It also earned him the Medal of Honor, further cementing his popularity among Hawai‘i residents who first voted him into the Territorial Legislature in 1954.
When he’s not campaigning for his eighth term this year or working, he’s beckoned by an estimated 50 dinner or reception invitations a day, especially to a man who has “never had a vacation in [his] life.”
“But this may surprise you,” he says. “I have dinner with my wife — and we’ve been married for 55 years now — about six nights a week.”
Inouye is quick to thank his wife, Maggie, for her patience and understanding through his five decades in public office.
“I know what she has been through. It’s not an easy life,” he says.
That’s part of the reason weekends at home in Maryland are more important to him than going on a real vacation. Whether it’s just spending time with his wife or their son, Daniel Jr., 40, who drops by once or twice a week, that’s just fine with Inouye.
But he hasn’t let up in his fight for the Akaka bill or funding scholarships on behalf of Native Hawaiians, a promise he made to his mother, Kame, who died 13 years ago.
Orphaned at age 4 — Kame’s mother died during childbirth, and her father died working on a plantation near Lahaina — young Kame was taken in by a Native Hawaiian couple.
“She always looked back [at it] as the happiest moments in her life, and she always made me promise that I would do whatever possible to show her gratitude to them. She says, ‘I can’t do it, but you can do it.’”
And before it’s all over, he hopes to add the one title that has eluded him, although it’s not one that won’t be his call. That will be up to his son, who just got married in May.
“I’m looking forward,” he says with a broad smile, “to when I may have a new title to my name: grandfather.”
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