See you say people in the military told you this. For me there is no way I would trust my life with a .22. For an everyday guy like me I am sure in a real life situation I am going to be scared as fuck if I have to shoot someone. I am willing to bet I cannot aim as good as I could at the range. So I would rather have a .40 or a 9 b/c the recoil isnt too bad and they put you down a lot quicker than a .22. I was talking to my old neighbor who is a city cop and he was telling me about how they got a call for this pile of shit who got shot 3 times with a 9. He said they guy was sitting on the curb bitching about how long it took them to get there. So I would say for an everyday guy a .40 (or something similar) seems to be the best all around personal defense gun.