A reader took issue with a caption Stars and Stripes ran Aug. 6. It was in the popular American Roundup feature. The photo was of a U.S. Navy Blue Angels jet flying close to the water on Lake Washington in Seattle. The caption, which, like the photo, came from The Associated Press, said: "The cloud of vapor around the plane results from flights just above water."

That made Chief Petty Officer Chris Iorio (retired) angry. Writing from Iraq in the Aug. 10 issue, he fumed: "For a newspaper whose audience is, what 95 per cent military, I, for one, am getting sick and tired of your lack of attention to detail and failure to research what you print."

If you're an editor, them's fighting words, even before you get to the writer's reason for the tirade:

"The phenomenon you see there (the cloud of vapor around the plane) is because the pilot has brought his F-18 to within a few knots of breaking the sound barrier, not because he is flying near the water....So get with it folks, OK?"

Intrigued, I contacted the Blue Angels base in Pensacola, Fla., and spoke with Chief Victor Brabble, assistant public affairs officer.

"They [the AP caption and the letter writer] are both right and both wrong," he said. The vapor is not necessarily because you're flying near water; you can see this if you're flying that fast.But it's mainly because of moisture in the air, and there is moisture over the lake. It's something you see less of on a hot, dry day. The vapor is mainly a function of both speed and moisture."

Even with the Blue Angels, apparently, there's such a thing as black, white...and gray. For those of us always looking for unequivocal answers, it's enough to make you sick and tired.