Army Reserve renames facility to honor Inouye

Seventy years ago, Daniel K. Inouye attacked three German machine gun nests near San Terenzo, Italy, getting shot three times in the process — including being hit by a rifle grenade that shattered his arm.

"I looked at it, stunned and disbelieving. It dangled there by a few bloody shreds of tissue, my grenade still clenched in a fist that suddenly didn’t belong to me anymore," Inouye wrote in a 1967 autobiography.

The famed nisei soldier with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, who later became one of the most powerful men in the U.S. Senate, returned in name to the home of his unit on the anniversary of the April 21, 1945, attack. Inouye died in 2012 at age 88.

The 9th Mission Support Command (Pacific Army Reserve) unveiled new signage and conducted a groundbreaking for the newly designated U.S. Army Reserve Daniel K. Inouye Complex at Fort Shafter Flats.

Among those Army Reserve units is the successor to Inouye’s unit, the 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry Regiment, and soldiers past and present attended the event.

Ron Oba, 92, was in F Company while Inouye was in E Company during fierce fighting in Italy and France.

"Oh, we had so many guys die. It was terrible," Oba said. "The Germans were so advanced because they fought before."

A new memorial walk, replication of some aspects of the machine gun emplacements attacked by Inouye, and unit highlights area are part of the new additions going in at the re-designated complex, the Army Reserve said.

Soldiers with the 100th, 442nd, also saw duty in Vietnam and Iraq.

Army Secretary John McHugh attended the ceremony. He was expected to meet later with Adm. Samuel Locklear III, head of U.S. Pacific Command and all U.S. military forces in the region.

"We want to make sure the United States Army is meeting the requirements of his broader-based command," McHugh said.

As the U.S. military re-balances to the Pacific and places more emphasis here, the Army also is looking to cut back its overall size in an era of tighter budgets and greatly diminished operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno recently said that meant getting to 450,000 soldiers in the active component, 335,000 in the National Guard and 195,000 in the Army Reserve, according to the service.

The downsizing has left uncertainty for Hawaii’s active-duty Army presence. The service is considering big troop cuts at 30 installations across the country as part of the drawdown to 450,000, or 420,000 soldiers if sequestration returns in 2016.

A worst-case scenario was proposed by the Army for Hawaii in which up to 19,800 soldiers could be removed from Schofield Barracks and Fort Shafter.

In February, while on a trip to Hawaii, Odierno said the state might lose some soldiers, but it could be a "very small" number here.

"Given our recent budget situation, I don’t see how we can avoid some pain at virtually every Army post, camp and station," McHugh said after Tuesday’s ceremony. "Obviously, the basing decisions that will be required to be made are still under analysis, and we’re working through that."

McHugh said a big part of the consideration will be strategic requirements.

"But the budget reductions are law, and we will have to live with them, and I would add, if in 2016 we go (back to) sequestration, as is currently the law, that pain across the board will be even more keenly felt," he said.

In the reorganization to come, and with the emphasis on the region, however, the Pacific Army Reserve could grow from its current approximately 3,500 soldiers, including about 1,800 in Hawaii, said Brig. Gen. John E. Cardwell, commander of the 9th Mission Support Command.

"The 9th right now is not scheduled to shrink," Cardwell said.

One unit might be swapped out with another in the changes to come, but on the plus side, the command is looking at the possibility of adding cyberdefense and logistics units, he said.

The 9th is the only Army Reserve command assigned to an Army four-star headquarters, and it brings unique capabilities to the region, Cardwell said.