ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt broadcast from JBER on Monday evening with reports about Alaska’s role and importance in defending the rest of the nation.
“It really goes back to the Chinese balloon incident,” Holt said Monday morning when asked about why he decided to bring the broadcast to Alaska. “As we continue to weave that story and tell that story, there were so many questions about, ‘What is out there?’ ‘What does radar see?’ ‘How and where are we at risk?’ And that, of course, led us to Alaska.”
Holt and the NBC News crew were given access to an early-warning radar site in King Salmon and flew with the crew of an Alaska Air National Guard KC-135 tanker, an aircraft used to refuel fight jets that intercept Russian aircraft if they come too close to U.S. airspace, which has happened several times this year.
Holt interviewed Lt. General David Nahom, 11th Air Force commander and Alaska commander for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) about Alaska’s importance in defending the nation. NBC quoted Nahom as saying, “Alaska sits in the center of the — of any hotspot in Northern Hemisphere. From here in Alaska, we can get it over the pole into Europe, we can get down to the South China Sea, we can affect the Arctic, we can be — we’re in the best position to defend the homeland. there is no more strategic place right now for our country than Alaska.”
Source : Alaska News
