It depends on how we define our priorities.

Here are some numbers to help you decide whether it really would be dangerous to take another slash at the military budget, as the debt-ceiling deal (and other fiscal politics) might soon require.

In 1985, at the height of President Ronald Reagan's Cold War arms build-up, the Pentagon budget (adjusted for inflation, to make it comparable in today's dollars) amounted to $574 billion.

An amazing and heart wrenching article written by Kasey Cordell of Portland Monthly:

Bullets, Bombs, IEDS. For today's armed forces, the risks are many. But for women who serve their country, some of the greatest dangers come from an enemy within: men.

DRENCHED BY 30 INCHES OF RAIN A YEAR, Roseburg’s rolling, fir-covered hills wrap around 59-year-old Carrie Jones’s home like a berm protecting her against memories of desolate, sun-scorched texas, where she spent her short military career in the 1970s.

The desert, for Jones, holds the danger.

Accounting for what you already assumed was Hollywood bullshit (obviously war is not a nonstop action explosion festival), if you're like most people, you still have a grossly skewed idea about what life in the military is like. For instance, many of you think ...

~Boot Camp Is Like Full Metal Jacket~

I'll be blunt: Everything about boot camp in movies is wrong. At least, it's wrong today. What you find out in boot camp is that the heart of military life isn't killing bad guys, fulfilling your potential or being all you can be. It's uniform inspections.