Find the Cost of Freedom, Buried in Our Ears and Groundwater

So I'm sitting here trying to listen to this fairly early (i.e., not so mad yet) Beethoven Septet on KUSC online, when the "Sound of Freedom" once again drowns out Beethoven, birds singing out my window, my wife asking where all the coffee went this morning, and everything else sonic.

And, as always happens when I hear the "Sound of Freedom", two questions spring to mind:

1. Do we really need all these military jets in a world where the U.S. invasion of a country takes about 30 minutes, but the ground force, door-to-door guerilla war takes years and years and years and years?
2. How much does flying these military jets in neat, yet deafening, formations cost?

I read that the U.S. Military is responsible for around two percent of U.S. oil usage, which may not sound like much but you need to remember this is the gas-guzzling United States we're talking about. The 132.5 million barrels of U.S. military usage estimated in 2007 dwarfs the oil consumption of entire countries like Israel and Ireland.

Yeah, I know those countries are small. But if my division is right, the U.S.Military would place just above Sweden and below good 'ol Iraq on this graph.

The "Sound of Freedom" is the Sound of Money Hemorrhaging at something like $4.25 a gallon for jet fuel.

And speaking of hemorrhaging, I also read this morning that jet fuel at Kirtland AFB is contaminating the groundwater table and has been for some time.

And, I'm not making this up, my online music (now a Segovia guitar piece) just got drowned out again by the Sound of Military Days Gone By. Vroom-vroom taxpayer dollars. Vroom-vroom.