Citizenship First, Then a Call to Duty

For two of America’s newest citizens, the pledge to defend this country “against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” took on special meaning Monday.

Marine Cpl. Keun Ho Yook and Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class German Oswaldo Acuna, both 24, happily agreed to do that and more in becoming U.S. citizens in a hastily arranged naturalization ceremony in Los Angeles before their units ship out to the Middle East.

The two servicemen, stationed at Camp Pendleton, fulfilled the requirements for citizenship and had been scheduled to take the citizenship oath at a ceremony Sept. 24. The apparent imminent deployment of the two men’s units to join the U.S. military buildup in the Persian Gulf forced the anxious pair to petition immigration officers for help.

“How would you feel if you died for this country and you weren’t a citizen?” asked Yook, a Marine motorman who was born in South Korea. “It’s not fair and it’s not right.”

Acuna, a Navy hovering craft mechanic and a native of Guatemala, told reporters after the ceremony: “I’ve been serving in the military for about four years and I think I can prove that I can serve this country right. I’m proud to be an American.”

Under U.S. law, legal resident aliens are eligible to serve in U.S. military units. Aliens have fought as enlisted personnel alongside U.S. citizens in engagements ranging from Theodore Roosevelt’s charge up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War to the deployment in bombed-out Beirut.

U.S. citizenship is required for men and women to be commissioned officers.

For officials of the Immigration and Naturalization Service--who handle more citizenship requests in Los Angeles than anywhere else in the country--the two men’s request was quickly handled.

Calls from Yook and his commanding officer, Marine Capt. David Olsen, came to the attention Friday of INS Western Region Commissioner Ben Davidian, who ordered the sometimes slow-moving INS bureaucracy into action.

“When I heard about Cpt. Yook and Petty Officer Acuna,” Davidian said, “that was all I needed. We decided to bend a few rules to make things happen.”

Assured that the men had complied with U.S. citizenship requirements, including legal residency for five years, INS officials put out a call for a federal judge who could fit a naturalization ceremony into an already crowded Monday morning calendar of legal matters.

U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian Jr., the son of immigrant parents from Soviet Armenia, was only too happy to oblige.

So in front of beaming relatives and comrades in arms, the two men--Yook in the familiar Marine khaki uniform and Acuna in Navy whites--rigidly stood at attention and took the citizenship oath.

Each man promised to “support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

After the oath, Yook and Acuna were handed certificates of naturalization.

In presiding over the ceremony, Tevrizian, who was appointed to the federal bench by former President Ronald Reagan, praised President Bush’s handling of the Persian Gulf crisis and took the occasion to take a swipe at Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, calling him “insane Hussein.”

But the spotlight was clearly on the two servicemen.

“I really feel great,” gushed an obviously relieved Yook after the ceremony.

Olsen couldn’t suppress a smile in his otherwise erect military bearing.

“When I became his commanding officer (in January), I learned of his desire to become a U.S. citizen,” Olsen said. “He’s an inspiration to every man in his unit.”

There was a touch of sadness amid the congratulatory handshakes and hugs.

Acuna’s wife, Ana, seemed a bit tense. “I’m happy for him because he’s now a citizen,” she said in Spanish. “But I’m also sad because he may be leaving.”