Petri To Receive Second Highest Civilian Honor From Government of Japan

On Monday, the Government of Japan announced that U.S. Representative Tom Petri of Fond du Lac will receive the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star from the Government of Japan, the country’s second highest civilian honor. 

Petri will receive the award from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on Wednesday, which will be followed by an audience with His Majesty Akihito, the Emperor of Japan.

“It is a great pleasure for me to inform you that the Government of Japan has decided to bestow upon you the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star,” Prime Minister Abe wrote to Petri in a letter, dated October 24.

For over a decade, Petri has been appointed to serve as one of two House Members on the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, an independent federal agency, and has been involved in numerous legislative exchange programs with members of the Japanese Diet in Tokyo and in the United States.  Petri also regularly meets with Members of the Japanese Diet in his Washington, D.C. office to discuss issues of importance between the two countries.  He has been active in the Congressional Study Group on Japan organized by the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress.

In 2010, Petri hosted Japanese Ambassador to the United States Ichiro Fujisaki to the Sixth District of Wisconsin where he visited Lincoln High School in Manitowoc, Lakeland College, several local businesses, and spoke at the Sheboygan Economics Club.  Petri has also visited Kamogawa, Japan, the sister city of Manitowoc, Wisconsin. 

The Orders of the Rising Sun were Japan’s first awards, established in 1875.  They feature rays of sunlight radiating from a rising sun.  There are six levels of the award, of which the Gold and Silver Star is the second highest.  Nominees are recommended for the award by the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Recent American recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star, are former Congressman Bill Frenzel (2000) and current U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (2012).