SEATTLE - Military veterans are crisscrossing the western states in a tour bus, sharing a message from their unique prespective about the relationship between America's national security and our energy policy. The Veterans for American Power tour visits Seattle today after a stop this week in Olympia.

Matt Victoriano, a former Marine who served in Iraq and who now serves in the Army National Guard, will speak out alongside other vets, about what he sees as a vital need to reduce dependence on foreign energy sources.

"Most of us over in Iraq at some point were guarding oil or gasoline supply convoys or oil refineries. Instead of taking out the people that need to be taken out, we're wasting assets."

Victoriano believes it makes more sense to keep our energy dollars at home rather than sending them abroad, and that America has the potential to produce its own energy through cleaner means. He says the Department of Defense is already undertaking "green" projects across the country. He also points to the new Quadrennial Defense Review, released Monday by the Defense Department, which lists climate change as a factor in national security.

"It recognizes that, through our own use of carbon-based energy, we're helping to cause climate change in the forms of droughts, floods, hurricanes, or more powerful hurricanes, that are destabilizing regions throughout the world and creating breeding grounds for terrorists."

The tour stops today at noon across from the Space Needle in downtown Seattle. It's one of more than 60 stops in 17 states, and the tour is part of a national group known as Operation Free. Its next stop is Montana. For information about the campaign, visit www.OperationFree.net.