American Combat Veterans vs. Illegal Immigrants By Dennis Sykes Most Americans live their lives in relative safety, comfort and freedom. They do not live outside what I term, "the normal range of living" where exposure to sustained lethal danger or sudden death is common place. I have lived outside the normal range when I served as a Marine rifleman in a combat platoon for 13 months in Vietnam with the First Battalion of the Ninth Marine Regiment known as "The Walking Dead." Part of my combat tour in Vietnam included the defense of the Khe Sanh airbase during the 100-day siege in 1968 by the North Vietnamese Army and the hill fights that followed. Hundreds, from my battalion, were killed and wounded during this period. I witnessed extreme combat conditions throughout my tour of duty in Vietnam. So you might ask, what does military combat have to do with illegal immigration? When I witnessed the violence and human suffering of war it left an indelible impression on me of what service to one's country can sometimes involve. I realize, at a deeply emotional and personal level, that service to our Nation can sometimes involve the greatest sacrifice possible, the giving of one's own life. Beyond that I have an actual experiential sense of the magnitude of pain, suffering and terror that America's soldiers have endured from the time of our own Revolutionary War to the present day wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. American's combat veterans from all wars have made unimaginable sacrifices often to include their own lives to build a nation that is safe, comfortable and free for most Americans today. So my problem is my inability to reconcile the sacrifices of so many American war veterans who made this country possible vs. the illegal immigrants in my country, who have sacrificed nothing for America, but have simply walked across our borders by the millions to enjoy that safety and comfort. In essence, the lax enforcement of our nation's immigration laws is a slap in the face to every American veteran. So simply stated, the message to all politicians is this: if you truly want to honor American military service and sacrifice, then enforce our nation's immigration laws and if you can't do that then we find someone who can! Specifically Mr. Politician do these six things: Build an effective barrier/fence on all U.S. borders, identify every illegal alien in the USA and give them an ID card, deport every illegal alien who has committed a felony, if the U.S. needs the illegal alien's skills or labor they can remain as a guest worker, pay a fine, then return to their country of origin within a specified period of time and reapply for the guest worker status, rigidly enforce sanctions and levy fines against all employers that violate the law, tell all illegal aliens in this country that as a nation we welcome legal immigrants but they must conform to all the requirements of our existing immigration laws in order to eventually become citizens. And one more thing, if an illegal alien would like to become an American citizen faster they can always volunteer to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States, where they can truly demonstrate some degree of sacrifice for the country they wish to one day call their own. More than a million American war veterans have died in combat for just such a privilege.

Return to Home Page

Return to Current Edition

Contact us