I was reading an article by Bryan Bender from the Boston Globe regarding the U.S. military's reliance on fossil fuels. I always thought of energy independence as good for our nation, given the volatility of many of the oil producing nations (and many of their dangerous politics), but Mr. Bender had me looking at this issue in a whole new light. In his article, he notes that the U.S. Department of Defense is the largest single energy consumer in the country. The Air Force alone, spends $5 billion on fuel--that's a lot of taxpayer money. The Army and Navy are not far behind the Air Force in this regard. More alarming statistics: About 80% of all material transported on the battlefield is fuel. Further, our military in Iraq and Afghanistan are currently using 16 times more fuel per soldier than was the case in World War II. The article brings to light the fact that our future national security is in real jeopardy if we continue to rely so heavily on fossil fuels. The hope is one day that our military will run on alternative energy, but that seems like a long time in the future. If we want to protect our nation and assist others in the future, we had better figure out a way to keep our military vehicles and weapons fueled. Otherwise, we may end up being more sitting ducks against other nation's threats. That is certainly not a position we want or can afford to be in.