President Cuts Nuclear Arms

I would like to respond to your article “Southland Jobs on the Line in Bush Defense Plan” (Sept. 28) detailing the effects of the Bush policy change on Southern California’s defense industry.

Enough already. The aerospace and defense industries are loaded with the country’s best and brightest. When will they get the idea that industry survival means change, like it has meant for the financial services, insurance and manufacturing industries? Why can’t they transfer their expertise from building “systems that destroy” to focus on problems here at home and in our local area?

The out-of-control defense spending of the last decade has created a lifetime of debt repayment for us, our children and grandchildren. Our new world order has thankfully brought a day of reckoning for these excesses.

Please let’s find a way to encourage our rocket scientists to use their skills, talents and creativity to build a better life in this country. I have to think that with their help there are quicker solutions to our environmental crisis, our local transportation problems, our crisis in education, even the drug and housing problems. The aerospace and defense industries have the leadership, the clout and even know-how to deal with the government bureaucracy--they just need a new business plan.

KENNETH A. MESESAN

Santa Ana