The drawdown is upon us. Both the base budget and the overseas contingency operation funding lines are getting smaller. This is forcing Department of Defense (DoD) components to make hard decisions on which programs they want to fund. These hard decisions are informed and influenced by the efforts of strategists, cost assessors, budgeters, congressional affairs personnel, program evaluators, and others who do similar work. If DoD components want to survive, and possibly thrive during a drawdown, they need to invest in and reward the work of strategists, cost assessors, budgeters, congressional affairs personnel, and program evaluators as they are DoD’s Program Defenders.