In Chap­ter Twen­ty, titled “Daniel Inouye”, the nar­ra­tive fol­lows the life of Daniel Inouye dur­ing World War II, specif­i­cal­ly focus­ing on 1943 in Europe. After grad­u­at­ing high school with aspi­ra­tions to serve, Daniel con­front­ed the dev­as­tat­ing real­i­ty of being cat­e­go­rized as an ene­my alien fol­low­ing the Pearl Har­bor attack. Japan­ese Amer­i­cans were exclud­ed from mil­i­tary ser­vice, lead­ing him to con­tin­ue his edu­ca­tion in pre-med instead.

Hawaii’s Japan­ese Amer­i­cans large­ly avoid­ed forced incar­cer­a­tion due to local offi­cials stand­ing up against mil­i­tary orders. How­ev­er, Daniel’s per­son­al expe­ri­ences took a dark turn when armed offi­cers came to seize his father’s reg­is­tered short­wave radio, ruth­less­ly destroy­ing it in front of them. This act deeply affect­ed Daniel, who felt the shame and injus­tice direct­ed toward Japan­ese Amer­i­cans, includ­ing his father, who had served hon­or­ably.

Despite their exclu­sion from the mil­i­tary, Daniel and oth­er Japan­ese Amer­i­cans peti­tioned for ser­vice, and even­tu­al­ly, in March 1943, Pres­i­dent Roo­sevelt approved the for­ma­tion of a seg­re­gat­ed unit. Daniel enlist­ed in the 442nd Reg­i­men­tal Com­bat Team, whose mot­to “Go for Broke” encap­su­lat­ed their deter­mi­na­tion. Upon deploy­ment to Italy, Daniel was shocked by the dev­as­ta­tion and pover­ty he wit­nessed.

He encoun­tered hun­gry Ital­ian civil­ians, offer­ing to work in exchange for scraps of garbage. Com­pas­sion­ate­ly, Daniel decid­ed to pro­vide food instead, mark­ing the begin­ning of a new rule with­in his unit to pri­or­i­tize feed­ing the starv­ing.

As the nar­ra­tive unfolds, Daniel faces intense com­bat, dis­play­ing extra­or­di­nary brav­ery even as he suf­fers seri­ous injuries. Dur­ing a vital mis­sion on April 20, 1945, he leads his men against Ger­man machine guns, ulti­mate­ly los­ing his right arm while sav­ing his com­rades. In a state of courage, he man­ages to throw a grenade before being severe­ly wound­ed.

After a gru­el­ing wait for med­ical assis­tance, Daniel receives surgery with­out anes­the­sia, lead­ing to the ampu­ta­tion of his remain­ing arm. Despite the trau­ma of war, he forges a friend­ship with fel­low sol­dier Bob Dole, and both promise to con­tin­ue their dreams post-war.

Fol­low­ing his recov­ery, Daniel embarks on a suc­cess­ful polit­i­cal career, express­ing a desire to pro­tect cit­i­zens over prop­er­ty, ulti­mate­ly becom­ing one of Hawai­i’s first sen­a­tors. Through his incred­i­ble jour­ney from sol­dier to politi­cian, the chap­ter high­lights the resilience and sac­ri­fice of Inouye and the Japan­ese Amer­i­can sol­diers of the 442nd unit .