Not long after George W. Bush plunged America into its war against Iraq, the president promised immigrants who signed up for military service in Iraq that their applications for American citizenship would be fast-tracked to honor their sacrifices and contributions to America's war.
After several years of frustration and waiting, these immigrants, some of whom served two or three tours of duty in Iraq, still await the fulfillment of this American promise.
Sound familiar? This has echoes of the promise made to Filipinos during World War II. Over 150,000 Filipino men answered the call in 1941 and joined as scouts with the United States Armed Forces against the Japanese. By some estimates, as many as 400,000 Filipinos served during WWII, many wounded or killed, many taken prisoner and forced on the infamous Bataan Death March. If American soldiers faced brutality at the hands of the Japanese, it was far worse for the Filipinos who fought for this country.
As part of their enlistment, Filipino soldiers were promised they would receive compensation and veterans' benefits like any soldier who served in the military during WWII. Unlike the current immigrants fighting for the U.S. in Iraq, Filipinos did not even have immigrant status since they were residents of a U.S. territory. So they had even less reason to fight for the U.S. during WWII.
That was over 60 years ago, and nothing, absolutely nothing, has been done by this government. The Filipino Veterans Equity Act, in a number of different incarnations over the past twelve years, has languished in congressional committees without any action or hope of survival.
And once again, this congressional session's Equity Act has little hope of success, even with Democrats in control of both houses of Congress.
No one gives a damn, not really. It's that simple. And that tragic.
America is full of unfulfilled promises to those who have sacrificed on behalf this country. If they were willing to die 60 years ago for the promise of veterans' benefits, if they're willing to die for this country today in an insane war for the right of citizenship, they deserve no less than the fulfillment of those promises.
What kind of nation are we to ask hundreds of thousands to sacrifice their lives and then to reject them, to forget them and cast them aside? I always thought we were a more moral and better nation than that. But we've proven over and over that we aren't, and the latest proof of that is what we're now doing to our immigrant soldiers in Iraq.
The majority of Filipinos who fought for this country in the Pacific are gone, but we still have an obligation to provide the benefits and rights to those still alive, some 18,000 Filipino veterans.
Or is the Congress going to play a waiting game until they're all dead and gone? To do so, which seems the case, would be to slither into the lowest depths of political cynicism.
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