[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 57 (Tuesday, April 10, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2022-S2023]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Remembering Daniel Akaka

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, last Friday, America lost a good and 
gracious person, a statesman, and many of us in the Senate lost a 
personal friend.
  Senator Daniel Akaka was as kind and decent a man as you would ever 
meet in life. For 3\1/2\ decades, Danny Akaka served the people of 
Hawaii in the U.S. Congress with dignity, humility, and deep caring.
  The Hawaiian concept of ``aloha'' isn't a quality that many think of 
when they think of politicians. ``Aloha'' means mutual regard and 
affection. It means extending warmth and caring with no obligation in 
return, no strings attached. Danny Inouye, that giant of Hawaii and its 
history, once called Danny Akaka ``a true ambassador of aloha.''
  When Danny Akaka announced in 2011 that he would not run for 
reelection to the Senate, then-Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie said:

       The words aloha and Akaka are interchangeable. Daniel Akaka 
     is Hawaii.

  Now, at age 93, Senator Akaka is gone. I first met him in 1983. I was 
a newly elected Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Then we 
sat together on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, 
the two of us next to one another down at the far end of the table. 
Danny had 6 years' seniority on me. We served together, worked 
together, laughed together, traveled together, and came to be friends.
  Here was a man, a great politician, who didn't have a personal ego. 
Politics was always about someone else, about helping other people. In 
fact, he went out of his way to avoid the spotlight. But don't think 
for a minute that he was weak. I have memories seared in my mind--
certainly October 11, 2002, when 22 Members of the Democratic caucus in 
the Senate voted against the resolution authorizing President Bush to 
invade Iraq--the Iraq war resolution Danny Akaka opposed. I can recall 
that it was nearly 1 in the morning when that rollcall ended and he 
left the floor after that historic vote. Soft-spoken, yes. Capable of 
making hard, meaningful, courageous decisions, certainly. That was a 
lonely road. I believe history has judged it to be the right vote.
  Danny Akaka's vote, like so many, was deeply influenced by his own 
experience in the U.S. military. At 17 years of age, he witnessed the 
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Two years later, after serving as a 
welder and diesel mechanic with the Army Corps of Engineers, he entered 
Active Duty with the Army and served in several areas across the 
Pacific.
  After the war, he used his GI benefits to go to college, and only 
later did he realize he was still carrying a wound from that war--post-
traumatic stress disorder. He said that earning a bachelor's and 
master's degree in education and working as a public school teacher and 
principal--his first profession--helped him to cope with PTSD.
  In politics, his second career, he used his influence to help other 
members of the military, veterans and their families.
  In 2008, as chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, 
Senator Danny Akaka cosponsored the post-9/11 GI bill of rights. That 
new GI bill of rights included a provision that I asked Danny to 
include to improve care for veterans wounded by another of the often-
invisible wounds of war--traumatic brain injury. Senator Akaka's 
leadership helped to pass that important new law.
  Two years later, then chairman of the Veterans' Committee, I appealed 
to Danny Akaka again for another provision. It was an idea actually 
authored originally by Senator Hillary Clinton of New York. It was 
called the Caregivers Program. The idea was to allow family members of 
disabled veterans to care for them at home, to provide necessary 
medical care and support in a home setting that they all wanted to be 
in. It was the right thing for our veterans, the right thing for our 
budget, and the right thing for America. Danny Akaka embraced it and 
became a leader on the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services 
Act of 2010, providing those family members with training and modest 
stipends. The stipends amount to only a fraction of what would have 
been spent on these veterans had they been in a different setting 
sponsored by the government.
  Well, Danny Akaka is gone, but his legacy of service lives on in 
millions of veterans and military families whose lives are better 
because of his quiet but fierce commitment.
  In 1996, Senator Akaka spearheaded an effort to require reevaluation 
of the service records of Asian Americans who had fought in the 442nd 
Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Division during the war.
  As a result of Danny Akaka's perseverance, almost two dozen Medals of 
Honor were bestowed posthumously on Asian-American veterans, many of 
them Japanese Americans. The most prominent recipient was his 
colleague, Senator Danny Inouye, who had lost an arm during World War 
II fighting for the United States in Italy. It was a long overdue 
justice for heroes whose courage had been largely ignored for decades 
because of racism, and Danny Akaka helped to make it happen.
  In 1993, Danny Akaka helped to bend the arc of the moral universe 
another time when he and Senator Inouye successfully pushed through a 
resolution in which the Federal Government apologized for its role in 
overthrowing the Hawaiian monarchy a century earlier.
  As a child, Danny Akaka listened to his parents speak their Native 
Hawaiian language in whispers. They didn't want Danny and his seven 
brothers and sisters to hear them because of the Territorial law 
allowing children to be punished if they spoke their Native Hawaiian 
language in school. That little boy, little Danny Akaka, grew up to be 
the first Native Hawaiian ever elected to the U.S. Senate. Danny Akaka 
was a champion of Native Hawaiians and Native Americans, a champion of 
good government and the men and women who do that work in government.
  He was a deeply spiritual and religious man, who once considered 
following his brother into the ministry but instead decided to help 
others in his own way as a teacher and a public servant. His was a life 
well lived.
  Last night, I had a telephone conversation with Danny's wife, Millie 
Akaka--what a team, 69 years of marriage. They were just a few weeks 
away from celebrating their 70th anniversary. They were inseparable. He 
was the Senator, but she was the driving force in his public career. 
She managed every one of his campaigns. She knew everyone in every 
direction. She never forgot a name, and she was always

[[Page S2023]]

there to finish his sentences. We talked for a long time last night 
about the times when we were able to get together--my wife Loretta, 
Millie, and Danny--and the good times we had and the great people we 
met in the process. I also talked about the time when Danny came before 
the Senate Democratic caucus luncheon. We used to have a great 
tradition, where every few weeks Senators would get up and just tell a 
little bit about their personal lives--things that don't make the 
headlines.
  I still remember Danny Akaka's presentation. He talked about growing 
up in a very modest family but having a mother with a very caring 
heart. His mother just couldn't stand to see someone who was struggling 
to find a home or a meal. She was always inviting someone in. Even 
though they didn't have a lot themselves, they were always sharing with 
people. She would say: Bring them over to dinner, Danny. Let's meet 
them.
  Then, after they met them, they would offer them a room. Danny told a 
story of people who came and lived in his home with him--perfect 
strangers who became part of their family and lived with them for 
months and even years. Some of those people whom they befriended went 
on to greatness. One was a medical doctor who became famous and never 
forgot the kindnesses extended by the Akaka family.
  His mother's lesson was learned by Danny Akaka. It was shared with us 
in the Senate. It was an indication of truly a caring heart and a 
person who was really prepared to serve every day of his life.
  I join my colleagues in expressing our condolences to Danny's wife 
Millie, to their five children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. 
May your love and memories be a comfort in this time of loss.
  To my friend, Senator Danny Akaka: Aloha and mahalo. Farewell and 
thank you.