Pearl Harbor had been a flash out of the sky, a vicious announcement of how badly some nations wanted power and how little protection an ocean could be in an age of rapid transportation and communications.
When the Japanese fighters and bombers passed like shadows over the waters of Hawaii, they carried more than bombs and bullets, their fleeting shadows marked the end of over a century of security. The last time an enemy army threatened American territory was in the early nineteenth century, since then the closest thing had been the vicious clowning of Pancho Villa.
