Families Torn by Citizenship for Fallen

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: AP

A young, ambitious immigrant from Guatemala who dreamed of becoming an architect. A Nigerian medic. A soldier from China who boasted he would one day become an American general. An Indian native whose headstone displays the first Khanda, emblem of the Sikh faith, to appear in Arlington National Cemetery.

These were among more than 100 foreign-born members of the U.S. military who earned American citizenship by dying in Iraq.

Jose Gutierrez was one of the first to fall, killed by friendly fire in the dust of Umm Qasr in the opening hours of the invasion.

In death, the young Marine was showered with honors his family could only have dreamed of in life. His sister was flown in from Guatemala for his memorial service, where a Roman Catholic cardinal presided and top military officials saluted his flag-draped coffin.

And yet, his foster mother agonized as she accompanied his body back for burial in Guatemala City: Why did Jose have to die for America in order to truly belong?

Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, who oversaw Gutierrez's service, put it differently.

"There is something terribly wrong with our immigration policies if it takes death on the battlefield in order to earn citizenship," Mahony wrote to President Bush in April 2003. He urged the president to grant immediate citizenship to all immigrants who sign up for military service in wartime.

"They should not have to wait until they are brought home in a casket," Mahony said.

But as the war continues, more and more immigrants are becoming citizens in death — and more and more families are grappling with deeply conflicting feelings about exactly what the honor means.

Gutierrez's citizenship certificate — dated to his death on March 21, 2003, — was presented during a memorial service in Lomita, Calif., to Nora Mosquera, who took in the orphaned teen after he had trekked through Central America, hopping freight trains through Mexico before illegally sneaking into the U.S.



Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jNIost1z_Qc0-u4-Nj7ImRp_YyiQD8VJI54O0

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Shh don't tell Lou Dobbs

He will probably try to take citizenship away from them.

[harmonicon]

2. this is ridiculous

We should live in a country where 'citizenship' doesn't matter, because all people are treated as equal.

Now, that being said....

this guy was a supposed 'illegal' immigrant and was accepted into the military? Does anyone else think that that's totally fucked up? Will this make right wing bigots heads explode? Doesn't that mean (not counting the job - the fact that this guy wasn't a citizen and had to sneak into the country, but was still willing to serve in our military speaks volumes) that the US government is employing so-called 'illegals'?

[AlphaCentauri]

3. There were 57 000 non citizens

now still 20 000 the note mention.

[happyslug]

4. And what about the US using FOREIGN MERCENARIES???

Such Foreign Mercenaries are blamed for the Fall of the Roman Empire and the fall of Renaissance Italy. Basically Rome would NOT recruit from its own population so switched to using German Mercenaries. Such Mercenaries had been used since the days of the Roman Republic but were NEVER the main force of the Roman Army till the Fifth Century when such German Mercenaries became the main Roman Army. When Rome ran out of Money, they left taking a lot of loot with them.

In the Eastern part of the Empire, such Foreign Mercenaries were used, including in Justinian's attempt to retake Italy, Africa (Tunisia) and Spain. These bankrupted the Eastern Empire so that 100 years later the Eastern Empire was almost conquered by the Persians and then the Arabs. To defeat both invasions the Eastern Empire recruited form its own peasants, giving them land in exchange for military service. Thus the Eastern Empire, unlike the Western Empire, went back to a domestically raised army and survived for 1000 years after the Western Empire had fallen.

Machiavelli, in his book "The Prince" also pointed out the hazards of using foreign mercenaries. Such mercenaries cost money AND if things go bad for your country, they leave. Machiavelli preferred domestically raised armies, for if things go bad for you, the soldiers, being from the same country, are in the same situation and will stay and fight, unlike foreign mercenaries who will leave, for it is NOT their country at risk.

No, if the US can NOT raise the troops it needs from US Citizens, we are in more trouble then many people on this board are willing to admit.

[Thothmes]

5. The U.S. has been recruiting foreign nationals for

Decades. This is not new. For decades the U.S. Navy recruited Philippine nationals for service in the Navy. After 20 years they became citizens. Believe we stopped recruiting in the Philippines when the facility at Subic Bay was shut down in the early 90s.

[happyslug]

7. The Navy has always had a problem getting Native Born to enlist.

Prior to the Civil War, the number of non-native born in the Navy exceeded 50% of the Navy (And like the Army of the both the Pre-Civil War and Post Civil War period tired to minimize the number, not in term of who were recruited and enlisted but in the totals, so a lot of non-natives were listed as Native born). After the Civil War the enlisted ranks of the Navy was overwhelming Black. In the 1880s and 1890s as segregation became the law in the South, the Navy also opt for Whites sailors to replace the blacks, by increase pay during the worse downturn in the Economy between the 1870s and the 1930s). By the time of the Spanish-American Wars most blacks were out of the Navy, except tin the ranks of Seward's, till after WWII.

As to the Philippines, native of the Philippines had been enlisted into the US Navy since the Spanish-American War when th US annexed the Philippines. This continued after the Philippines became independent in 1946, and remained so till the US bases in the Philippines were closed in the 1980s.

My point was that some mercenaries are NOT bad, Rome when in was a Republic used Mercenaries when needed, but Rome's main army was Roman till Rome could NO longer recruit natives then it fell.

[Thothmes]

8. Part of that problem

was that sailing on merchant ships paid better and the discipline was not as severe. Ships are like the gallows, they refuse no man.

[newfie11]

6. What about the Border Patrol guy who turned out to be an illegal immigrant

[AlphaCentauri]

9. He was deported to Mexico n/t

[harmonicon]

10. oh, that's too good - I didn't know about that NT