Head: 25th Airborne
Torso, arms: Retaliation Kwinn
Legs: Poc Steel Brigade
Harness: Marauder
Helmet: 50th Dusty

''American Defense... the very name strikes terror into the hearts of the enemies of freedom! American Defense... the elite secret troop of specialized fighters in Defense of Freedom! American Defense... headed by the Super Eight Attack Squad... America's best Defense!'' - Taken from back of 1986 packaging.

American Defense was a line of 3 3/4'' military toys sold exclusively at Kmart in the eighties. The line started with Galoob's A-Team molds and Remco grew it from there. It was later produced by different companies and ended up in dollar stores and discount outlets. Similar to GI Joe, it included a wide variety of colorful characters. However, without a cartoon, comic or any marketing to back it up, the line rode GI Joe's coattails for a while and then disappeared.

''Tactical Genius, supremely adaptable, American know-how at its best!''
Defender was one of the original 8 American Defense figures. Numbered AD-1, he was available in two different color schemes - green and tan. Since that pretty much makes Defender the American Defense equivalent of Grunt, my favorite GI Joe character and I had previously made the green version, ''Tan Defender'' was the first custom I put on my list for this project. Parts-wise, I changed a few elements from my green custom to use some of my fodder rather than trying to find the exact same parts. These small changes give this figure its own identity.