By John E. Carey

I write this because I am terrified of the prospect of a ballistic missile killing a lot of people somewhere in my lifetime. I have no financial ties to any company making ballistic missile defense systems, nor do I have any tie, financial or otherwise, to the Pentagon.

I am a retired U.S. Navy Commander. In 1991, when the allied coalition attacked Saddam Hussein to eject his forces from Kuwait, I was aboard a U.S. Navy AEGIS guided missile cruiser in the Arabian (some say Persian) Gulf. I suddenly saw a streak across the radar display. This meant some object was moving fast. Really fast. In fact, too fast to be an aircraft or a tactical missile.

At first I dismissed the object. It could not be real. But then I uttered, loud enough for others to hear, "Oh my God."

I had read intelligence estimates stating that Saddam Hussein had SCUDs, the ballistic missiles of Soviet origin.

Saddam was using ballistic missiles. And ballistic missiles are the perfect platform for nuclear, biological and chemical weapon delivery.

I have spent the past 15 years or so working in the field of ballistic missile defense.

There is a proposal on the table to put a missile defense system in Europe. I do not know the particulars of the system. I don't know the velocity of the missiles used for this system, for example. Like many people, I am more interested in the concepts, not the engineering.

The Prague Post asked me why one or more than one country in Europe might decide to take a missile defense system within its borders. The answer is simple.

The work to be done is to determine the best combination of sensors and weapons to achieve the stated objective. I do not know the particulars of the system being envisioned but I have worked a long time in missile defense. Often, the best defense is achieved by spreading sensors and weapons. In other words, if you have just one sensor and one missile launch site and they are located together, you're going to defend a smaller area and you might have "leakers."

Leakers are those targets, in this case ballistic missiles, that probably have or could have weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, biological or chemical weapons) that you can't take out with your system. Time and again, when we do computer modeling and simulation of missile-defense systems, we achieve a better result with distributed sensors and missile-defense weapons.

The missile-defense missiles, once deployed, are "dumb." They don't need care and feeding, usually. And they are safe. They are like having an aircraft in a hangar in your neighborhood, only safer. There are no nuclear weapons in the missile-defense missiles. In fact, they have no warhead. They destroy the ballistic missile by smashing into it.

I know that, according to a survey, 86 percent of the Czech people are against a missile-defense site in the Czech Republic.

I ask myself: Why?

First, I know the Czech people have a natural and understandable reservation about foreign troops being on Czech sovereign soil. So ask the United States: Can Czech soldiers run the missile site? Make the United States take the Czech Republic on as a full partner in the system. The system will have no offensive capability whatsoever, so it is no threat to anyone. So why can't Czech soldiers run the missile defense site? You don't have to be American to understand missile defense.

Second, there has not been enough discussion of this idea for you to assemble and evaluate the facts. The fact of ballistic missiles should be pretty clear to everyone. On July 4, North Korea again showed us that they are serious about their ballistic missile development program. Iran's missile engineers were right there with the North Koreans that day. They are working together. Also, there are lots of ballistic missiles all over the place: Pakistan, India, Russia, etc.

There is another fact: thanks to former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, the United States has been working on defensive systems to destroy ballistic missiles for a long time. On March 23, 1983, Reagan announced from the White House, "I've reached a decision which offers a new hope for our children in the 21st century." He explained his vision — and his defense budget's inclusion — of the genesis of this nation's missile defense effort. The country has been working on it ever since.

The systems we have so far in the United States (and Japan is already a partner) are not perfect, but they are a lot better than the nightmare of an Armageddon via a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead.

I would ask you a few easy questions. If you knew there was a possibility or a probability that someday you or your children would face the possibility of dying because of one missile launched into your homeland, would you want a possibility of defense? Would you choose life, or to die?

Then, if you choose to live — to have the possibility that you will defeat the missile and live — and you knew you had to be no more than a certain distance from the launch or sensor site to live, would you allow the launcher, missiles and sensors in your area, or not?

If yes, and you knew that the closer you were to the launcher the better your chance at life, would you allow it in your territory?

I'd move in with the missiles, if I could, myself. And I'd take my family.