Daniel Inouye wanted to serve the United States from a young age. Growing up in Hawaii, he was rattled by the attack on Pearl Harbor; in 1944, at the age of 19, Inouye deployed to Italy, then France, to fight the Nazis. War changes most soldiers’ lives, but Inouye, fighting in an all–Japanese American combat unit, also had to get his right arm amputated: A Nazi soldier struck him with a grenade launcher, partly destroying the arm and forcing him to pry the undetonated grenade out with his left hand.