West Point, like many academic institutions, has its fair share of legends. These stories get passed along through generations of cadets and seem to grow with time.
One story, rumored to be true, but which has never made it into the “Plebe Knowledge” book, tells of a destructive tsunami that took place along the banks of the Hudson River. A tidal wave at West Point? That’s like telling plebes that intonations to Odin’s name will keep them from marching in a review or that Molly the ghost is haunting Quarters 100, right?
Thus, imagine cadets’ surprise when, during the Civil and Military Engineering Club dinner in April 2018, Brigadier General Gerald Galloway Jr. ’57 (Retired) delivered a presentation and referred to working on a project at West Point in 1961 involving a tsunami! It immediately grabbed the attention of those in attendance. After the dinner presentation, cadets found themselves waiting in line to ask Galloway, former Dean of the USMA Academic Board and a presidential appointee to the Mississippi River Commission, more about this event. Then- Cadet Bradley Krupp ’19 was one of these cadets, and turned his five-minute conversation with Galloway into a successful fivemonth independent research project. Read more.