They are men and women, students and retirees.

By the thousands, Venezuelans from different walks of life have responded to President Nicolas Maduro’s call to join militia training to “defend the homeland” against a feared US invasion.

Over the weekend, they swarmed to training camps, where they learned to handle and shoot guns to the backdrop of anti-American rhetoric and as US warships loomed off the coast.

If the Americans “come with their war machines … we will greet them with lead,” Pedro Arias, a 62-year-old volunteer in Caracas, told AFP on Saturday.

Maduro, whose last two re-elections Washington does not recognize, and who it accuses of being a drug lord, has warned of a US “threat” amid the biggest American naval buildup in the Caribbean in years.

US forces blew up an alleged

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