Our research of this area told us that Monday was the only day we could take a tour of West Point. This weekend they will have their graduation ceremonies with VP Biden as their commencement speaker. From Tuesday on they restrict the access to only the many family members of the cadets who will be there for graduation-related activities. It was a very rainy day and the tour was by bus so at least we stayed dry.
West Point is the oldest military installation in the United States in continuous use. It was an important location in the Revolutionary War as it kept the British from sailing up the Hudson and dividing the northeast colonies from the rest of of the States. Cadets began training at West Point in 1794 and Congress formally established the United States Military Academy in 1802.
We could not just wander the grounds as we had at Annapolis. For one it is a much larger campus, but it also seems to have a lot more military operations and security. For example, we were told that all of the documents from Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan were sent their for analysis. The setting of the campus is beautiful in hills high above a huge “S” curve in the Hudson River.
West Point also has an extensive military museum that features a lot of history of military weapons. The picture above is one of the same type of canister as the “fat boy” bomb which was the dropped on Hiroshima, Japan by the Enola Gay, the plane we saw in the Aerospace Museum in Washington DC.
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