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NUMBER OF IMMIGRANTS IN U.S. ARMY RISES
A recent article by Dave Moniz in the Christian Science Monitor addresses the current discussion over the role of immigrants serving in the U.S. military. According to the Navy Times, legal resident non-citizens accounted for 7,500 new recruits to all the armed forces in 1997. In the Army alone, non-citizens recruits have risen from 2,200 in 1995 to 3,100 in 1998. Despite the numbers, the percentage of non-citizens in the Army is low, only 4.2%.
While non-citizen recruits have helped recent recruiting slumps, many are concerned. One current reason for the concern was the revelation in December that that an Egyptian national and former Army supply sergeant was charged with assisting Osama bin Laden, the Saudi national implicated in the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. This is highly unusual, and military officials are quick to point out that immigrants are not placed in sensitive positions such as intelligence or Special Forces.
Lyle Hendrick, a former Special Forces officer, says immigrants "sometimes make better soldiers than U.S. teenagers," but also fears that increasing percentages of immigrants in the Army grows "further and further away from the image of the American public." Most historians however, do not believe immigrants would be reluctant to fight for America, citing the example of Japanese-Americans who fought for the U.S. in World War II.