By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 16:57 EST, 23 December 2012 | UPDATED: 17:38 EST, 23 December 2012

The late Sen. Daniel Inouye was remembered Sunday as an American hero whose legacy as a war veteran and longtime senator would be felt across Hawaii for years to come.

The memorial service at Honolulu's National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific was attended by more than 1,000 people, including an emotional President Barack Obama, who had previously called the late senator one of his first political inspirations.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Hawaii's congressional delegation and a number of other senators, cabinet secretaries and other dignitaries were also on hand at Sunday's service.

'Daniel was the best senator among us all,' Reid told those assembled. 'Whenever we needed a noble man to lean on, we turned to Sen. Dan Inouye. He was fearless.'

A 19-gun cannon salute was fired as Inouye's coffin arrived for the service at Honolulu's National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, the final resting place to thousands of World War II veterans.

More than 400 members of the storied Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team - of which Inouye was a part - are buried at the site.

The service also featured a flyover by F-22 military jets and the playing of Taps by Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana.

Inouye's widow, who was seated with the president and first lady Michelle Obama in the front row, dabbed her eyes as a pipes and drums band played Danny Boy.

Several cabinet secretaries and a number of senators also attended the service, including fellow Hawaii Democrat Daniel Akaka and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

'He was a shining star of the greatest generation,' Akaka said at the service.

Akaka also highlighted Inouye's role in steering federal money to build roads, schools and housing in Hawaii over the decades, from the beginning of statehood.

'Dan Inouye is Hawaii and Hawaii is Dan Inouye,' Akaka said.

The 88-year-old Inouye died of respiratory complications on December 17.

He was the first Japanese-American elected to both houses of Congress and the second-longest serving senator in U.S. history.

The past week has been marked by tributes and honors for Inouye, with services held in Washington and in Hawaii. He lay in state at both the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Thursday and the Hawaii state Capitol on Saturday.

Inouye was a high school senior in Honolulu on December 7, 1941, when he watched dozens of Japanese planes fly toward Pearl Harbor and other Oahu military bases to begin a bombing that changed the course of world events.

He volunteered for a special U.S. Army unit of Japanese-Americans and lost his right arm in a battle with Germans in Italy, earning him a Medal of Honor. The injury scratched his dream of becoming a surgeon and went to law school and into politics instead.

He became known as an economic power in his home state as part of the Senate Appropriations Committee, where he steered federal money toward Hawaii to build roads, schools and housing.

Obama eulogized Inouye during a service at Washington's National Cathedral on Friday, saying that Inouye's presence during the Watergate hearings helped show him what could be possible in his own life.

The president arrived early Saturday in Honolulu for his annual Christmas family vacation. He made a brief visit to the grave of his grandfather, World War II veteran Stanley Dunham, after Sunday's service.

During the memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral, Obama was overcome with emotion as he spoke of Sen. Inouye, whom he had described as being his earliest political inspiration.

He said the experience left him with a sense of what serving in government was all about and described Inouye as a man full of 'grace and dignity.'

Sen. Inouye was remembered for gallantly defending his country on the battlefield and gracefully seeking to better it during the 50-plus years he represented his beloved state of Hawaii.

After Inouye became Hawaii's first congressman following statehood in 1959, he won election to the Senate in 1962.

He was the first Japanese-American elected to both the House and Senate and was serving his ninth term in the Senate when he died.

As a legislator, his specialty was steering federal money to his home state to develop the kinds of roads, schools and housing other Americans had on the mainland.

Inouye, a senator since January 1963, was currently the longest serving senator and was president pro tempore of the Senate, third in the line presidential succession. His office said Monday that he died of respiratory complications at a Washington-area hospital. He was 88.

He won election to the Senate three years later and served there longer than anyone in American history except Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who died in 2010 after 51 years in the Senate.

Inouye's first political campaign in 1954 helped break the Republican Party's political domination of Hawaii. He was elected to the Territorial House of Representatives, where he served as majority leader. He became a territorial senator in 1958.

Inouye was serving as Hawaii's first congressman in 1962, when he ran for the Senate and won 70 per cent of the vote against Republican Benjamin Dillingham II, a member of a prominent Hawaii family.

In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson urged Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who had won the Democratic nomination for president, to select Inouye as his running mate. But Inouye was not interested.

'He was content in his position as a U.S. senator representing Hawaii,' Jennifer Sabas, Inouye's Hawaii chief of staff, said in 2008.

Inouye reluctantly joined the Watergate proceedings at the strong urging of Senate Democratic leader Mike Mansfield.

The panel's investigation of the role of the Nixon White House in covering up a burglary at Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate in June 1972 ultimately prompted the House to initiate impeachment proceedings against Nixon, who resigned before the issue reached a vote in the House.

After the hearings, Inouye said he thought the committee's findings 'will have a lasting effect on future presidents and their advisers.'

He achieved celebrity status when he served as chairman of the congressional panel investigating the Iran-Contra affair in 1987.

That committee held lengthy hearings into allegations that top Reagan administration officials had facilitated the sale of weapons to Iran, in violation of a congressional arms embargo, in hopes of winning the release of American hostages in Iran and to raise money to help support anti-communist fighters in Nicaragua.

'This was not a happy chore, but it had to be done,' Inouye said of the hearings.

The panel sharply criticized Reagan for what it considered laxity in handling his duties as president. 'We were fair,' Inouye said. 'Not because we wanted to be fair but because we had to be fair.'

Born September 7, 1924, to immigrant parents in Honolulu, Inouye was 17 and dreaming of becoming a surgeon when Japanese planes flew over his home to bomb Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, changing the course of his life.

In 1943, Inouye volunteered for the Army and was assigned to the famed Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which earned the nickname 'Go For Broke' and was one of the most decorated units of the war.

Inouye rose to the rank of captain and earned the Distinguished Service Cross and Bronze Star. Many of the 22 veterans who received Medals of Honor in 2000 had been in the 442nd.

On April 21, 1945, he was leading a charge on a machine gun nest in Italy's Po Valley. He was shot in the abdomen, but kept inching toward the machine gun and managed to throw two grenades before his right arm was shattered by a German grenade.

Even then, he continued to direct his platoon 'By his gallant, aggressive tactics and by his indomitable leadership, Second Lieutenant Inouye enabled his platoon to advance through formidable resistance,' his Medal of Honor citation said.

After the war, he returned to Hawaii and received a bachelor's degree in government and economics from the University of Hawaii in 1950. He graduated from George Washington University's law school in 1952.

Happy Holidays: President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama wave as they board Air Force One