Pony Party,

Please consider reading and rating this Yahoo!News story

I know it’s early in the morning, and I know I usually fill the morning pony with something less depressing….but it is things like this that get overlooked in all of the other disconcerting (to say the least) news on the treatment of ‘the troops’….and in discussions of immigration, and the ‘path’ to citizenship…

From the article:

“There is something terribly wrong with our immigration policies if it takes death on the battlefield in order to earn citizenship,” [Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles] 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.

The article discusses some of those who have earned their citizenship by dying in service.  I didn’t copy any of that…it’s early, and they were so young…and full of hope.

There are tens of thousands of foreign-born members in the U.S. armed forces. Many have been naturalized, but more than 20,000 are not U.S. citizens.

“Green card soldiers,” they are often called, and early in the war, Bush signed an executive order making them eligible to apply for citizenship as soon as they enlist. Previously, legal residents in the military had to wait three years.

Since Bush’s order, nearly 37,000 soldiers have been naturalized. And 109 who lost their lives have been granted posthumous citizenship.

So although its a heartbreaking topic, and maddening as well, I wanted to encourage the uprating of the story to assist in redefining the ‘support our troops’ meme…and because they deserve far better than they got.

~73v