A former National Football League star who played on defense has spent the last couple of days travelling through Missouri talking up the need for national defense – national missile defense. Riki Ellison won a national championship at the University of Southern California and three Super Bowl rings with the San Francisco 49ers. More than 20 years ago, during his playing days, he started studying missile defense strategies and now heads up an organization known as the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. Ellison says polling done for his agency shows Missourians – more than residents of any other state – favor spending money for such a system. Ellison says Missourians are aware that Whiteman Air Force Base in west-central Missouri and the Callaway County Nuclear Plant in mid-Missouri are possible targets. The missile defense system has a price tag of about $10-Billion dollars – roughly 3 percent of the entire defense budget.
