Remembering Pearl Harbor by starting a new Martin Dugurd book: “Taking Midway”
Posted By RichC on December 7, 2025
I’ve been on the waiting list to download the ebook “Taking Midway” by Martin Dugard from my local library for months, but my hold recently came up and so I checked it 
out two days before National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day (today). The timing is excellent for “remembering” the 2403 fallen Americans back in 1941. Martin Dugard’s new 2025 book chronicles the events leading up to the World War II and battle for Midway Island … which most military historians see as the turning point in the Pacific in WW2.
December 7th was definitely a wake up call for America and I still find it difficult to believe that with a war raging in Europe, and one obviously brewing in the Pacific, that we let our guard down to that degree? Of course in saying this, we did the same in during “Tet” in Vietnam (annual Vietnamese New Year), on 9/11/2001 after prior attempts and even with President Biden underestimating the Taliban while exiting Afghanistan. We are still likely ill prepared today noting all the radical political and ideological types (citizens and non-citizens) or those who came under weak asylum laws, or just flat out illegally, and entered the U.S. without proper fitting vetting?. The idea of lone wolf terrorist with a bomb or just using a vehicle … or an enemy of our country such as a larger radicalized sleeper cell willing to use biological or other weapons of mass destruction against Americans does have me concerned. Are we that naïve?
Back to remembering Pearl Harbor and starting a new book: I’m already intrigued how an attack on the United States by Japan awoke “a sleeping giant” (as Isoroku Yamamoto stated) and I am hoping such a horrific attack isn’t what is required for America to maintain a strong military and a cautious posture of “peace through strength” in the years ahead.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
– George Santayana (1863-1952), U.S. philosopher, poet.
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