7.01.2005
Troops Put Lives on Line to Be Called Americans (USATODAY.com)
Posted 6/29/2005 11:26 PM Updated 6/30/2005 5:52 AM
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
It is the hardest way to become an American citizen: fighting for a country that is not yet yours, and in some cases dying for it.
Catalin Dima took this path, and his family has no regrets. Born in Romania, where he served in the military, Dima immigrated to America in 1996 and came to adore his new country. Living in Queens, N.Y., and later upstate, he married, fathered three children and worked as a big-rig truck driver.
After becoming a legal resident in 2001, he joined the Army Reserve in response to the Sept. 11 attacks. "I tried talking him out of the Army because I was afraid, but there was no talking him out of it," says his wife, Florika Dima. "He said he had to do it."
"He bought the whole package," says his uncle, Peter Danciu. "He loved this country."
While deployed in Iraq last October, Dima, 36, took the oath of allegiance administered by Eduardo Aguirre Jr., outgoing head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. In a fit of joy, he shouted "USA, USA," as he left the ceremony. Six weeks later, the day he was promoted to sergeant, Dima died in a mortar attack near Baghdad.
Aguirre says, "The moral of the story for me is he died as he would have liked to have died: a U.S. citizen and an officer in the U.S. Army."
(More ... USATODAY.com - Troops put lives on line to be called Americans) ¶ 08:31
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
It is the hardest way to become an American citizen: fighting for a country that is not yet yours, and in some cases dying for it.
Catalin Dima took this path, and his family has no regrets. Born in Romania, where he served in the military, Dima immigrated to America in 1996 and came to adore his new country. Living in Queens, N.Y., and later upstate, he married, fathered three children and worked as a big-rig truck driver.
After becoming a legal resident in 2001, he joined the Army Reserve in response to the Sept. 11 attacks. "I tried talking him out of the Army because I was afraid, but there was no talking him out of it," says his wife, Florika Dima. "He said he had to do it."
"He bought the whole package," says his uncle, Peter Danciu. "He loved this country."
While deployed in Iraq last October, Dima, 36, took the oath of allegiance administered by Eduardo Aguirre Jr., outgoing head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. In a fit of joy, he shouted "USA, USA," as he left the ceremony. Six weeks later, the day he was promoted to sergeant, Dima died in a mortar attack near Baghdad.
Aguirre says, "The moral of the story for me is he died as he would have liked to have died: a U.S. citizen and an officer in the U.S. Army."
(More ... USATODAY.com - Troops put lives on line to be called Americans) ¶ 08:31
