It appears the safety of U.S. is in good hands

Last week West Point cadet Caleb Reilly came by the office for a visit and anyone who had been there would have left the room with great admiration toward the young man.

He’s practically a recruiting poster.

Clear eyes, stout jar, clean-cut, crisp uniform. Nearly every sentence ended in “sir.”

His is not the path of a son of a military academy graduate. No silver spoons here. He has lived in villages throughout the state and from those Spartan beginnings he has risen to one of this nation’s pinnacles of education where he is excelling.

And his enthusiasm for his job is contagious. Make no mistake, his job is a tough one. The physical and intellectual demands of him are unequaled on college campuses across the country. While undertaking 20 credits of course work — more than most college students — he also runs seven miles before breakfast and another seven before bed time. It’s not just running. There are lots of stations along the way where military lessons are staged.

If the rest of the graduates at West Point acquit themselves as well as Reilly does, then the nation’s defense forces, at least the ones on the ground, are in good shape.

Mother nature

comes calling

Mount Redoubt finally blew her top and then came the ash.

But the fall-out isn’t all that nasty. People on the west side of the borough reported ash an eighth to a quarter of an inch coming down. It appears Anchorage and the more populated parts of the borough will escape the ash entirely. If the winds cooperate.

The people who watch these things say these eruptions could gone for months, but they just don’t know.

So it would behoove people to keep their eye on the sky and watch the volcano observatory website for the most recent information. You can find a link to this site at www.frontiersman.com.

It may not seem like much of a threat, but the ash can harm people with breathing difficulties and it also does serious damage to vehicles. Pilots in particular should be aware of volcano activity where ash clouds could mess up a nice flight.

Those traveling through the airport in Anchorage should also call ahead. There have been numerous flights canceled because of the ash cloud. People who have been here awhile will recall a 747 flying into a cloud from Redoubt in 1989 and lost power in all four engines. The pilots were able to restart the engines and landed safely, but not before falling almost 10,000 feet and causing some $80 million damages to the plane. No airline wants to have that happen again, so they will be cautious about flying when ash is in the air.