The US just lost a person that did a great job as a Congressman.  He focused on national security and issues that were in the best interest of our nation.  Today, many members of Congress focus on political and personal agendas that are destructive to our national security and our Constitution.

Charlie Wilson, the former congressman from Texas whose funding of Afghanistan's resistance to the Soviet Union was chronicled in the movie and book "Charlie Wilson's War," died Wednesday. He was 76 and represented the 2nd District in east Texas in the U.S. House from 1973 to 1996.

Actor Tom Hanks portrayed Mr. Wilson in the 2007 movie about his efforts to arm Afghan mujahedeen during Afghanistan's war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Mr. Wilson, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, helped secure money for weapons, plunging the U.S. into a risky venture against the world's other superpower.

Mr. Wilson, a Democrat, was considered a progressive but also a defense hawk. He had acknowledged some responsibility for Afghanistan becoming a safe haven for al Qaeda after the Soviets retreated and the U.S. withdrew its support.  "That caused an enormous amount of real bitterness in Afghanistan and it was probably the catalyst for Taliban movement," Mr. Wilson said in a 2001 interview.

The Soviets spent a decade battling the determined and generously financed mujahedeen before pulling the Red Army from Afghanistan in 1989.  Mike Vickers, who as a CIA agent in 1984 played a key role in the clandestine effort to arm the Afghan rebels, said Mr. Wilson played a part in the Soviet Union's collapse, which happened just two years after its withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Mr. Vickers, now assistant secretary of defense for special operations, praised Mr. Wilson as a "great American patriot who played a pivotal role in a world-changing event - the defeat of the Red Army in Afghanistan, which led to the collapse of communism and the Soviet Empire."

"Charlie was perfect as a congressman, perfect as a state representative, perfect as a state senator. He was a perfect reflection of the people he represented. If there was anything wrong with Charlie, I never did know what it was," said Charles Schnabel Jr., who served for seven years as Wilson's chief of staff in Washington and worked with Mr. Wilson when he served in the Texas Senate.