After March 31, Alaska will be on its own plowing snow off the runway at Galena, a Yukon River community 275 miles north of Fairbanks. As reported by the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, the decision has taken Alaskan officials off guard. USAF has always helped clear Galena Forward Operating Location, and, when the BRAC commission voted to close the FOC, it urged USAF to withdraw its help slowly to ease the local impact. An Air Force spokesman, MSgt. Tim Hoffman, told the paper that the plowing, which cost $442,000 each year, isn’t justified now that operations are ending.
Gene Smith, Former POW and AFA Chair, Dies at 91
Jan. 19, 2026
Lt. Col. Richard “Gene” Smith, who overcame five and a half years as a prisoner of war in the notorious Hanoi Hilton from 1967 until 1973, died Jan. 16. He was one day short of his 91st birthday.
