STEEL AND THE STEALING OF OUR HOMELAND

I never meant to grow up to be anti-military. Patriotism was the mother's milk of Rosemont School, where most daddies were proud WW11 vets with adoring families happy to pledge the flag and honor America in every way. We were, in a sense, all born on the Fourth of July, living the American dream in the fabulous fifties.
When Communism threatened us, there was no doubt but that the evil Russian Empire would feel the burn of every bomb our missile plants could produce-and deserve them! Especially with Premier Nikita K coming on tv every 20 min promising, "WE WILL BURY YOU!" Talk about a shoot yourself from the air and sea move!
But now I'm in my fabulous fifties and the world looks a lot different.
The land that I love bears the Superfund brand from steel plants to mines to army and naval bases to industrial/metals/and God-knows-what-else
dumping grounds to radioactive waste disposal sites to streams, rivers, and oceans. What is the connection between these places? They provided the materials and building sites, storage and waste sites for aircraft, ships, munitions/bombs, and even the space program...the military.
Were these endeavors or inventions necessary to create the world we live in today?
YES-things being what they were back in the day of LBJ and his buds; with JFK having been murdered and the war in Viet Nam escalated to the max.
BUT...it takes a lot of thoughtful research and courage to connect the dots and see that many of our environmental problems essentially intersect the military with all its glory and greed of corporate contractor moguls who made billions from war.
When unraveling toxic mysteries, when connecting the dots, I've found the following advice helpful:
Follow the money...which splinters into following the materials, the uranium deliveries and radioactive waste, the companies that changed hands and names multiple times, the nuclear permits, and personalities who devised one money making scheme after another at the expense of land, water, and human health.
Then when the true picture emerges ask, "Who was supposed to be regulating activities and appropriate environmental safeguards and clean up? Who was supposed to be protecting citizens-present and future?"
If I worked for a regulatory or protective agency funded by tax-payers, I might be a little nervous-secretive right about now - BUT THAT'S JUST ME. Nervous...about the environmental misdeeds of the past that have been denied and covered up with soil caps; and military technology of the present and future that is so secret and complex that thinking people wonder how regulation will be possible.
Has the military and its weaponry grown beyond the people's ability to understand it, oversee it, and approve it?