He will assume his new duties at Camp Smith. Case wears three hats in Alaska. He is commander of the Alaska Command, commander of the Eleventh Air Force and commander of the Alaskan North American Aerospace Defense Region. He will be replaced by Air Force Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz, who currently is deputy commander in chief of Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. An insect pest that has killed large stands of tamarack trees in Interior Alaska has arrived in Anchorage, where it has begun to attack an ornamental variety called the Siberian larch.
Entomologists say the larch sawfly is black and orange when it's a flying insect.
In its larval stage, when it devours larch needles, it looks like a green caterpillar with a large black head and measures nearly an inch long. Entomologists say homeowners with infested trees either can spray or try to knock down the pests with water. Holsten said this kind of insect problem is likely to increase as Alaska's temperatures rise because of global warming.