Defense Secretary tells West Point cadets they’re ready

WEST POINT, N.Y. (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told U.S. Military Academy cadets they were graduating during “exceptionally tough circumstances” but that West Point prepared them to face extraordinary threats from pandemics to terrorism. Austin spoke to about 1,000 cadets becoming U.S. Army second lieutenants in a ceremony held with pandemic precautions at West Point’s football stadium. Austin is a 1975 graduate of West Point. And he recalled his own years at the academy as he told graduates their West Point training will keep them on course.