(Image source: U.S. Senate ) BY CHRISTINA HARTMAN Hawaii senior Senator Daniel Inouye has died at the age of 88. Senator Inouye was chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee and President pro tem of the Senate. He was the body’s longest serving senator, and had served the Congress for more than 50 years. (VIDEO VIA WRC ) Monday morning Politico reported the World War II veteran was fighting emphysema and complications from an old lung surgery. In 1943 Inouye enlisted in the Army after a ban on Japanese-Americans was dropped. He lost his right arm after a battle in Italy in 1945 when — already wounded — he was lobbing hand grenades when his right arm was severed. By the time he left the service, he had been the recipient of a Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. Inouye had planned to run for a record tenth term in 2016. As president pro tem he was third in the line of succession to the presidency. That honor is now expected to go to Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy. The Washington Post’s Ed O’Keefe reports , according to his staff, “Aloha” had been Senator Inouye’s last word.