NYT/AP: Gold Star Mothers Accepts Non - Citizen

Gold Star Mothers Accepts Non - Citizen
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 8, 2005
Filed at 7:54 a.m. ET


PLEASANTVILLE, N.Y. (AP) -- A Jamaica-born woman whose U.S. Marine son died fighting in Iraq has finally been welcomed into the American Gold Star Mothers, which had banned non-citizens for the first 77 years of its existence.

Within an hour she was enthralling fellow members with a moving description of her son's devotion to America, ''which he chose to be his country.''

Carmen Palmer, of Mount Vernon, learned that her application had been accepted when she arrived Wednesday night for the screening of a film dedicated to women who have lost children in combat.

Judith Young, president of the Washington-based American Gold Star Mothers, was also at the screening and said she had just processed the first two applications from non-citizens since the organization's rules were changed in June....

***

Women who lose children in combat are popularly known as Gold Star mothers, but membership in the American Gold Star Mothers, who support each other and do service work for veterans, is by application. The group has 933 members, Young said....


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Gold-Star-Mothers.html

Don't you recall, as recent as 3 months ago, there was a mother of a soldier killed in Iraq that was a citizen of Mexico and there was a huge uproar over the fact that they didn't let her in??

another one down the memory hole. :(

colossal failure*.

The rules change followed a firestorm of protest after it was disclosed that another New Yorker, whose son died for the U.S. in Afghanistan, had been rejected because she was not a citizen. That woman, Philippines-born Ligaya Lagman, of Yonkers, withdrew her application.

Ann Herd, then president of the American Gold Star Mothers Inc., said at the time, "There's nothing we can do because that's what our organization says. You have to be an American citizen. We can't go changing the rules every time the wind blows."

The organization immediately came under criticism from politicians including Gov. George Pataki, U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who pointed out that many members of the armed services are non-citizens.

Lagman's son, 27-year-old Army Staff Sgt. Anthony Lagman, was a U.S. citizen. Palmer's son, who joined the Marines in hopes of saving money for college, was not.

Young, who was about to become president of the organization, said, "The charter was written 77 years ago, and we're in the next generation, I realize that. Things have changed, times have changed, people have changed."

It looks like the organization, unlike its then-leader, recognized that the wind had indeed shifted. The rule (and the leadership) still had to be changed, and it was, fairly promptly. At the time the rule was made, 77 years ago, no one would have thought it unusual or bad.

The thing does raise an interesting question. I agree there is no justification for excluding the mothers (hmm, fathers?) of members of the US military, whatever the parents' nationality.

I still find it odd that the US admits non-citizens to its military. Canada, for example, does not. It just looks like yet another way of exploiting foreigners, to me. Wave benefits before their eyes that they could not get elsewhere (just as is done to exploit the disadvantaged in the US population -- job training, education ...), and bingo, cannon fodder.

Imperial Rome ...

http://www.morgue.demon.co.uk/Pages/Other_stuff/GLOSS.HTM

Civium Romanorum: Auxiliary units could be granted block citizenship for achievements on the battle field, the title would remain even though the grant of citizenship was only to those troops serving at the time; the title was also used for a small number of auxiliary units raised originally from citizens

to be buried. It was big news down here in Texas.

:thumbsup: