Editor,

This is an open letter to the Navy and its representatives, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus.

I want to comment on the article “Navy looks to purchase 22 more Growlers from Boeing” in the March 19 edition of the South Whidbey Record.

It’s hard for me to know where to begin.

Let me start with the fact that in a recent poll of a sampling of approximately 60,000 citizens in 68 countries, when asked “Which country is the greatest threat to world peace?” answered that America, by a huge margin, was number one. As an American citizen I am appalled by this fact.

In America, where the long-term unemployed can’t get extended unemployment benefits, we have the resources to buy 22 more Growlers at a minimum price just shy of 1.5 billion dollars.

Or how about the fact that education and its costs are at an all-time high for students and parents yet we can waste this kind of money for more death and destruction machines to, as you say, be “very mindful of the industrial base.” Is this the American Industrial Base, killing machines?

With all due respect, admiral, a better “hedge and risk reduction” effort would be to put this kind of huge money into healthcare, education, food assistance for poor people facing food security issues, heating assistance for the elderly… well you get the idea, because this type of misguided and foolish spending is of no benefit to American citizens.

This very attitude that the military and its budget are sacrosanct is a major detriment to what has been identified in the past as “American values.”

This enormous military budget is for what?

As a citizen, this kind of waste makes me angry because the people right here at home need to have this wasted money re-invested in America for Americans, not used to “defend” the business interests of the 1 percent all over the planet, giving us the dubious distinction of being

identified as “the biggest threat to world peace.”

DAN FREEMAN

Clinton