By now, most Danger Room readers are familiar with Riki Ellison, the onetime NFL linebacker who hung up his cleats to become the one of the most prominent U.S. advocates for missile defense.
Bloomberg's Curtis Eichelberger has an interesting profile of Ellison, who's been busier than ever with his campaign to keep the missile-defense dollars flowing. And as an owner of three Super Bowl rings, Ellison can't resist a football metaphor.
“Sometimes you play zone defense, other times you play man-to-man, the key is to layer your defense so you can protect your goal line no matter how they attack you,” Ellison told Eichelberger. “That’s essentially how a missile defense system works.”
With a belligerent North Korea brandishing missiles, Ellison has been particularly vocal about keeping alive some of the programs that have been targeted for cuts by the Obama administration. And before a recent North Korean missile test, Ellison wrote to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, urging the deployment of the Sea-Based X-Band Radar (SBX), a powerful tracking and discrimination radar was undergoing repair in Hawaii. While the SBX was not diverted to track the missile, Ellison managed to get more attention to the program.
Of course, Ellison isn't the only missile-defense celeb. Doobie Brothers guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter has made a name for himself as a missile-shield advocate as well.
[PHOTO: Wikimedia]
