The Pentagon Looks to Foreign Citizens to Meet Recruiting Goals
by John Little on 26/12/2006Common sense thoughts (i.e., Ideas of little value to government) on military recruiting of non-citizens from Consul-At-Arms:
Regarding the recruiting of non-citizens, I’m fairly ambivalent. I’ve served with naturalized citizens, and some not-yet-naturalized citizens (i.e., Legal Permanent Residents or “green card holders”) and was satisfied with their dedication and professionalism. And I’ve been present at several ceremonies where non-citizen servicemembers received their U.S. citizenship (including one posthumous naturalization). I can’t begin to describe the pride they felt (as did I) at their achievement.
I’ve also fielded questions from foreign citizens who wanted to know how they could join the U.S. military, not just as a path to citizenship, but to participate in the War on Terror.
The reservation I have about this sort of outreach recruiting is that it not become another victim of political correctness. There are plenty of people out there who would take advantage of overseas recruiting in order to do harm to us, either for the enemy or on behalf of other actors (MS-13 comes to mind) with their own, often criminal, agendas. If it were up to me, I would limit recruiting of non-citizens/residents to certain countries only, such as NATO countries, perhaps extending it to British Commonwealth countries (speaking English is kind of useful for servicemembers). And would not extend the immediate naturalization for military members that’s currently in force, but let them have conditional residency status for three years or so.
Another Voice: What does it say about a country when it can’t find recruits from within? Looking outside for fresh ideas and/or particular expertise makes sense. Looking outside for warriors to protect us is a whole other ‘can ‘o worms’.
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