I am a defender, a soldier. So are many I know.

[The Straight Story]

My son is a physically fit young man, father of 3, husband to a wonderful lady.

He is in Iraq right now. He can carry a heavy pack, march for hours, shoots well.

Me? I have a bad back, bulging disk in my neck. My X has parkinson's disease. My dad is 75 and tired a lot.

Come threats to the US, come a war - I know what my son WON'T say:

"If you can't defend yourself, sorry about your luck."

I know people, family and others, who are home ill with mental problems - debilitating to the point they cannot defend themselves - they cannot work, cannot pay for health care:

Chinks in the brain circuitry make some more vulnerable to anxiety
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-chinks-brain-circuitry-vulnerable-anxiety.html

Chemists make discovery that may lead to drug treatment possibilities for Alzheimer's
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-chemists-discovery-drug-treatment-possibilities.html

Are but two examples of an ENEMY that is attacking the people I love.

When I get my paycheck each week and see money missing for taxes, when I crawl out of a cold bed in the mornings to scrape off my car wishing I could just be back in my warm bed, I don't say to those I love and those I don't even know facing such things:

"If you can't defend yourself, sorry about your luck."

I may not be in some foreign land carrying a gun, but I believe in the principle of defending and protecting those who cannot. It might be at one level or another, but the ideal is the same to me.

We spend a ton of money on one, yet the same folks wanting to spend more on war machines seem to discount all the other enemies our people face.

They don't want to fight them, because it is not as flashy to them, there are no medals, no parades.

Those too ill, too weak, are called lazy. Should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. All because the enemy is not one they can see, so it is not real.

I am surprised those on the right do not tell cancer patients that are dying to get up and go to work so that they can pay for their own health care all the while asking us for money to pay for guns and more ammo to fight some enemy that is not even here hurting us.....

Oh wait. They do.

[RegieRocker]

1. I feel your pain.

[Raksha]

2. K & R - as someone who suffered for years from anxiety attacks...THANK YOU!!!