Congressman seeks U.S. official language
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Two North Carolina congressmen are promoting measures to establish English as the official language of the United States.
"This is a bigger issue than a lot of people realize," Rep. Walter Jones told the Winston-Salem Journal.
Mr. Jones, a Republican, and several other congressmen introduced a bill that proposes a constitutional amendment to establish English as the official language.
Rep. Richard Burr is a co-sponsor of a competing bill that does not propose amending the Constitution. Instead it would codify into federal law that all federal publications – including tax forms – must be done in English only and would recognize English as the sole official language of the United States.
"I see any effort to amend the Constitution as a last resort," said the Rep. Burr, adding that he would support Rep. Jones’ bill if it turns out to be the only way to accomplish the goal.
Most of the more than 190 countries of the world have an official language, and 27 states – including North Carolina – have made English their official language.
Mr. Jones points to problems that have arisen as a result of not having a universal language for the entire country.
"We know what so many states have had to do with driver’s license (applications). They have separate booklets to explain the law in Spanish or some other language," Mr. Jones said. "Thirty or 40 years from now I will be dead, but what will happen if we have certain states where the majority of people don’t speak English?"
Peter Siavelis, a political science professor at Wake Forest University, said the measures hurt immigrants and do more to divide the country than to unite it.
Some U.S. soldiers see fracture in mission, morale
By Edward Wong
N.Y. Times News Service
KARBALA, IRAQ - Six weeks ago, soldiers of the 1st Armored Division were renovating schools. Now they are raiding them for hidden munitions.
Children wave to them along the roads, while insurgents with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades make them targets.
"Our mission is to rebuild this country, but the thing is, the bad guys won't let us do it," said Spc. Jennifer Marie Bencze, 20, of Santa Rosa, Calif. "At the same time we've got engineers rebuilding schools, fixing roads, doing all the humanitarian projects; we've got infantry fighting the bad guys. So the mission is really confused."
Here in the Shiite heartland, the division is caught up in the fiercest and deadliest fighting under way in Iraq. That is a far cry from May 2003, when the division rolled into Iraq thinking the war was all but over, ready to plant Western-style institutions in this arid land. Interviews with dozens of soldiers over the past two weeks suggest that their idealism has been tempered.
All agree the war is at a crucial juncture, but few soldiers can say with certainty how to achieve victory – or even what might constitute victory.
"I think Bush is a good man, but over here, it's not as easy as he makes it sound," said Spc. Matthew DeGregorio, 35, a reservist in civil affairs assigned to persuade Iraqis to work on projects with the Americans. "Nobody buys the fact that it's so easy.
"To be honest, I'd say there are things that need to be worked out," he added. "I'd say they need even more men in the entire country. I think it goes back to the cuts in the military. I think they're leaning too heavily on the National Guard and the reserves."
The abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib concerns soldiers, too. They ask whether their work has been irrevocably tarnished in the minds of Americans and Iraqis. "Now we wonder what people back home think of us," said 1st Lt. Erik Iliff, 24, of Columbia, S.C. "Will it be like Vietnam, where everyone who's fought there is labeled a baby killer?"
As for Iraqi opinion, Spc.DeGregorio said the scandal "adds fuel to the fire."
"We're not only seen as an occupier, but we're seen messing with their people and doing sick stuff," he said. "Rumors and stuff you see on TV are huge here. They've already had it driven into their heads by Saddam Hussein that America is the Great Satan."
Many of the soldiers are tired. They were supposed to go home at the end of April, but their tour was extended by four months when it became clear that troop numbers were too low. They share a sense of camaraderie, though, forged by working together during what is for most of them the toughest year of their lives.
At Camp Lima, a military base on the outskirts of Karbala, they sleep scores to a tent in 100-plus-degree heat. They are barred from indulging in sex and alcohol. When they do leave the base, it is often to get shot at or to kill people.
The strength of the insurgency convinces some soldiers here that a strong U.S. military presence must remain in Iraq. "We're just trying to take this big ball of mess and keep it from exploding," said Lt. Josey Sandoval, 24, of Seattle. "If the U.S. Army left right now, this country would tear itself apart."
For others, a mission that began with clear objectives is murkier than ever.
Asked to describe his mission, Sgt. Daniel Rigole, 23, said: "It just seems like we're trying to police. In my personal opinion, it's a job for the United Nations. I don't really think it's our job anymore.
"Our job as combat engineers has nothing to do with driving around, policing people up," he added. "It's nothing we trained to do."
In their hot and fetid tent, Sgt.Rigole and several others talked of U.S. casualties suffered in recent fighting around the Mukhaiyam Mosque. Three soldiers have been killed and at least 55 wounded since the 1st Armored Division opened the offensive against rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia two weeks ago. Daily battles rage in downtown Karbala. The division's casualty rate is running higher than at any time in the last year.
Sgt. Rigole said he believed that outside Iraq, "nobody cares anymore, because it's just becoming another part of life."
"When it's somebody of your own, that's somebody who was watching your back and you were watching his back," he said. "It's part of your family, you know. Even when it's someone who's part of another unit, you still care."
Cpl. Jonathan Torres, 20, from Puerto Rico, observed: "It builds some type of anger. It makes you angry at the enemy."
A soldier close to an infantryman killed by a sniper stopped by a reporter's room at the base and almost punched the wall. He was on the verge of tears. "I want you to tell people that this is ridiculous," he said. "We know where the enemy is. We could take them out. But we're holding back because of politics."
He was speaking of the balance adopted by U.S. commanders, who have refrained from attacking insurgents holed up around two especially important shrines in downtown Karbala out of fear they could inflame Shiite Muslims the world over. Most of the mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades being fired at Americans are coming from that area. It is a dilemma intrinsic to the kind of urban warfare the Americans have been drawn into – weighing the potential of a public backlash against the need to win a decisive victory with the fewest casualties.
"It does limit some of our options," said Lt. Col. Garry P. Bishop, the commander of American forces in Karbala. "But you can win a battle and lose a war if we turn the will of the people against us."
NAR Cosponsors Smithsonian's WWII Exhibit
(May 7, 2004) -- The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® will cosponsor "So Proudly We Hail," an exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History that will honor World War II veterans and the flag under which they served.
The temporary exhibition, to be located adjacent to the current "Star Spangled Banner" exhibition, unites for the first time in one exhibition four historic flags from the war. The exhibit opens May 27 to coincide with the dedication of the National World War II Memorial on the National Mall and runs through Sept. 6.
Included in the exhibition will be the American flag raised at Iwo Jima in 1945; the first American flag to enter Berlin in 1945; a flag made with material from a captured Nazi flag, a blue dress uniform and some salvaged red fabric; and the 31-star flag carried by Commodore Matthew C. Perry entering Japan in 1853 and brought aboard the U.S.S. Missouri for the formal surrender of Japan.
NAR also is sole sponsor of "Within These Walls …," a permanent exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History that includes the struggles and triumphs of the WWII generation. It showcases 200 years of American history as seen from the perspective of one house that stood from Colonial days through the mid-1960s in Ipswich, Mass. The final setting in the exhibition illustrates how a woman and her grandson served on the home front in 1942 by growing and canning vegetables, conserving fat, and saving tin cans. Their story reflects the many personal sacrifices towards the war effort made by thousands of American families.
"REALTORS® are proud to honor the men and women who sacrificed so much and to whom we owe such a great debt," says Walt McDonald, NAR president and broker-owner of Walt McDonald Real Estate of Riverside, Calif. "By cosponsoring 'So Proudly We Hail,' we are helping to make possible the display of the very flags that inspired a generation to achieve the greatest victory in world history. Never before have these flags flown together. Now they are joined to celebrate the dedication of the World War II Memorial, and REALTORS® helped to make it happen."
—NAR