By CONGRESSMAN-ELECT NICK BEGICH III
Today we remember the attack Pearl Harbor, a moment when America realized that global conflict could and would make its way to our own shores. America has been blessed with two large barriers in the form of both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, providing us with relative domestic peace over our national history. But, as we learned on that day, modern capabilities diminish that gulf substantially.
As Alaskans know, we would soon also fight the Japanese in the Aleutians, at Midway and Guadalcanal, and fully engage every aspect of our American lives and economy into World War II, which only ended when America detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In the European theatre of World War II, the European nations had not sufficiently invested in their own national defense and had a misplaced sense of diplomatic certainty, despite the recent memory of World War I. America ultimately came to the aid of the French, the English, and other European allies. In the Pacific, America beat back the expansionist Imperial Japanese military, which was part of the Axis alliance of Germany, Italy, and Japan.
It feels eerily familiar to what is happening in Ukraine today. As that conflict continues, the relative weakness of European allies, which have deprioritized national security investments for decades, has been exposed.
Alaska has never had a more important role to play in defending our nation and on this day, while we pray America does not get pulled into another global conflict, we as a state must be ready, because we are the tip of the spear. Our military can reach any part of the northern hemisphere in hours.
Americans have once again elected a strong leader, replacing one who has certainly weakened our nation’s stature and capabilities. Even before taking office Donald Trump has already sent a harsh message to Hamas – release the hostages or we will release the hounds of hell. Further, he has pressed for a peaceful resolution to the war in Ukraine. People in these regions are listening and pathways to resolution are now opening.
When the new Congress begins its work in a few short weeks, our nation’s military and readiness will be top of mind. Our warriors must know that Congress has their backs, that we’ll emphasize readiness over “woke” and “DEI.” Our warriors must have confidence that leadership understands the weight of their service and tasks them with missions worthy of their sacrifice.
To the families who lost loved ones in battle in World War II and the conflicts that followed, we honor you and your sacrifice. By projecting strength, defending our borders, and providing for our military in a responsible manner, America can maintain peace for our children and grandchildren. That must be our goal.
Nick Begich III is Congressman-elect for Alaska.
Finally, people of common sense and maturity are back in charge. Down with Woke and DEI. Done with Democrat nonsense.
Slime Line Fake Name, Let me re-word your comment to be more accurate. Finally, those of us with common sense and maturity out-voted those we can’t say the same for. We finally hired (elected) like-minded public servants to set-aside the woke and DEI nonsense in favor of proper conservative American values. This realignment shows the voters are ultimately in charge.
Just don’t go looking for a fight Nick. Pete has radical religios tattoos on his body saying stuff like “it’s gods will”etc. He reminds me of a nazi youth version of the tune…onward Christian soldiers. Putin has inferior weapons to ours and as such, has painted himself into a corner. A cornered animal is the most dangerous kind. Don’t let trumps egomania cloud the big picture.
You really have to bring that up at every chance, you just can’t help it. Pete Hegseth was not on my radar for Defense Secretary but I can tell you as a career military he will bring what we need back to the military. For too many years since Obama started the decimation of our military we have been the laughing stock of the world. Having a daughter still serving and my own service both as a soldier and a civilian assisting those who still put their name on the dotted line to serve I welcome someone like Sec Def Hegseth who is going to be to bring our military back to what it was and will be the Best fighting force known to man with overwhelming superiority on the field of battle not the woke garbage we have today leading us down the wrong road.
You’re living in the past. That’s not how wars are fought today. Not our wars anyway.
Living in the past that is a lie. I live in the present and the future but do not relinquish the past. If you erase the past you are defaulted to repeat the past. I know how wars are fought today as I have been to many lands during the 23 years in service to this country can you say the same thing. My whole response to you was you bring in something that is not relevant to the article. Stay on topic if you can.
i think you are the only article to mention pearl harbor day today. all the other papers i looked at forgot what day today is. congrats to you keep up the good work. i’m glad i donated to you….
Let’s not forget Zelenskyy is not a real head of state, he was installed by Victoria Nueland and the swamp, against the wishes of the Ukrainian people, he’s a ZOG puppet. Hard to take anyone playing the piano on national TV with their genitals seriously ( watch it if you havnt) you can also watch him on dancing with the stars lol. He’s an actor, playing a role. He has destroyed Ukraine. His regime supported terrorists that were shelling Belarusian kindergartens back in 2014/15. The MIC are masters of transferring public wealth to private hands, unnecessary conflicts have robbed our nation. Deploy the army to the border, we are being invaded.
Nat, expanding on your comment, the MIC are masters of buying our politicians (including Sullivan/Murkowski) with the profits made from their allocation of printed/borrowed public funds to expand market share for their products.
The resulting inflation is a massive tax hike levied on the working, already struggling classes to maintain the MIC shareholders in lavish life styles.
There are no product quality standards, mass production capabilities, or meaningful competition.
We have created a public funded corporate monopoly, ie corporate socialism. Makes the old railroad barons look like amateurs.
Profiting from arming terrorists, and proxies worldwide while ignoring the resulting human misery has become our legacy over the past 30 years.
Agreed.
God bless you and guide you CONGRESSMAN-ELECT NICK BEGICH III. Thank you for taking time to honor those wo gave the ultimate sacrifice.
And thank you for for your commitment to this Nation and the people of the Great State of Alaska!
I pray these words will guide you in your service.
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 2 Tim. 4:7
Representative Begich I’m glad that you bring this up on the day of remembrance. For too many years our failing education system has not taught the history that will remind us who and where we are at today. While in the service for 23 years every year I would ask my soldiers what was significant about December 7th and too often because of the education system even soldiers serving did not understand or know why we remember this day. Thank You for keeping this in the spot light as we must never forget the sacrifices of the service members from the greatest generation who we continue to Honor.
Thank you for the article and reminder.
The Trump Administration will not assume what is left of executive power in the office of the presidency for several weeks.
In the meantime, whoever actually is running the country has authorized our military personnel to launch our missiles into Russia from the remaining territory in Ukraine the regime we installed still controls.
This is the definition of insanity and endangers our national security to a suicidal degree.
Further south our government has been arming and training, with the assistance of Turkey, the rebranded terrorist groups, AKA ISIS, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, worst of the worst savages, in Syria.
This horde of psychopaths was unleashed, at the time of our choosing, with our full logistical support, albeit by proxy with plausible deniability.
The duplicitous irony of creating these terror groups with one hand, while using their existence as justification to play king maker in Mid East countries. Replacing one dictator with another.
These and dozens of other projects endanger our security, our military is strung out, vulnerable (openly used as “trip wires”, or live bait), enriching our MIC companies while destroying our fiscal, economic and quality of life standards here at home.
We can only hope Representative -Elect Begich will work to end this suicidal pattern and is not already purchased by the MIC and globalist corporate interests.
Well stated, Nick. The nations of the world learned an important lesson after Pearl Harbor. A lesson that needs to be reinforced today. Don’t put yourself in America’s crosshairs when it has a President who takes his job seriously. That’s a very, very bad idea.
Let’s hope we don’t have this kind of government deception in the future. From Admiral Kimmel:
“General Short and I were not given the information available in Washington and were not informed of the impending attack because it was feared that action in Hawaii might deter the Japanese from making the attack.” These two Flag Officers were used as scapegoats by DC and blamed for their “lack of diligence”. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was also a blatant lie as well and DC knew it. Admiral James B Stockdale who was the Air Wing commander aboard the USS Maddox admitted it many years later.
Stockdale, who would later earn the Medal of Honor, stated that a
gunboat attack never did occur. But the illusion was enough to cause us to begin bombing North Vietnam.
Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq anyone? I guess not so far…. We are routinely lied to by our own government in order to enter war.
Do better Nick. You can study history or you can trust government. But you can’t do both.