When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, 17-year-old Daniel Inouye was studying pre-med at the University of Hawaii and working as a volunteer medic at the naval base.
But because he was Japanese, the Army wouldn’t let him join—they saw him as “an enemy alien.” It wasn’t until 1943 that the U.S. military dropped those racist rules, and Inouye was finally allowed to enlist in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a unit made up entirely of second-generation Japanese Americans. That team would go on to become the most decorated infantry group in U.S. history.
In his first year, Inouye was made a sergeant, and the next year, he became a second lieutenant after helping save around 200 fellow soldiers stuck behind enemy lines in France. He only missed finishing one battle—when he blacked out after being shot in the stomach and leg, and then lost his right arm from a grenade blast. But even then, he woke up just long enough to yell at his men, who were standing around him, and told them to keep fighting: “Nobody called off the war!”