Sitting across the Potomac from Washington DC is the Pentagon, home to the Department of Defense. The DOD was created in 1947 combining the War Department, Navy Department and incorporating the new United States Air Force into one unified government agency and a combined command structure. Good idea...wrong name.

If you can, please point out an error in the following statement. The Defense Department has never played defense. It has only played offense. It is not designed to protect the United States. It is designed to fight wars in other countries on the other side of the world.

Remember reading 1984 in school... Newspeak...peace means war, democracy means totalitarianism, freedom means chains and we have the Department of Defense.

The last time our Army truly played defense was in 1873 at Gettysburg. Our naval forces were completely unprepared at Pearl Harbor. Our continental air defense on 911 was comprised of some Massachusetts Air National Guard units... not the United States Air Force. We don't play defense. We really don't train for defense.

Our Navy's main weapons are Aircraft Carrier Task Groups which deploy to waters far from our shores and ballistic missile submarines. Our ready Air Forces stationed in this country are the 222 C17 Globmaster freighters that can carry entire Army brigades and their equipment to far off lands.

I'm not saying its a bad strategy...keeping wars away from North America. It is however expensive. The American taxpayers continually pay for equipment for wars fought in other lands. Or perhaps more accurately, the federal deficit (are you listening Republicans?) continues to grow astronomically because of our love of wars being fought in other nations. Yes, I support our troops unconditionally. Yes, I support helping the Ukrainians and the Israelis... but not unconditionally.

Let's take the first step to reign this in. Change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War (what is it good for?) with a nod to Edwin Star (who wrote those lyrics).