Posted on 07/29/2008 8:53:28 PM PDT by RDTF
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- One of the Marines shown in a famous World War II photograph raising the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima was posthumously awarded a certificate of U.S. citizenship on Tuesday.
Sgt. Michael Strank, who was born in Czechoslovakia and came to the United States when he was 3, derived U.S. citizenship when his father was naturalized in 1935. However, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recently discovered that Strank never was given citizenship papers.
At a ceremony Tuesday at the Marine Corps Memorial -- which depicts the flag-raising -- in Arlington, Virginia, a certificate of citizenship was presented to Strank's younger sister, Mary Pero.
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Strank was killed in action on the island on March 1, 1945, less than a month before the battle between Japanese and U.S. forces there ended.
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(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Years too late but a move that needed to be done. Kudos to CIS.
Good post. Thanks.
What do you want to bet that his Service Jacket correctly listed him as a US Citizen?
This is nothing more than a “feel-good” exercise by the morons in CIS to deflect attention from their miserable performance in handling our immigrant’s problems. I’m willing to bet his family was surprised when they were contacted, as no one had given it a passing thought, and likely Sgt. Michael Strank, USMC, didn’t either.
Every time I see the USMC Memorial, I feel a chill and a lump forms in my throat. Young people today have no idea what those brave souls did to save this nation.
So they give him his papers 63 years after his death? For what conceivable reason? Whew. This is some goofy stuff here. I mean, I doubt he's grateful or anything....
(Man, there must be something in the water...)
After all these years....seems to me I have read article after article of Soldiers (enlisting/wia/kia/etc.) getting citizenship very quickly, and just lately not years ago, and some of them previously illegals at that! Hmmm...
Ref
That Flag On Suribachi....
http://www.angelfire.com/ca/dickg/flagwtc.html
ARLINGTON, Va. — Sixty-three years after he helped raise the American flag atop Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi, Sgt. Michael Strank’s younger sister, Mary Pero, 75, accepted his official certificate of citizenship during a ceremony at the Marine Corps War Memorial July 29. Strank was mortally wounded eight days after Joe Rosenthal captured the now iconic flag raising. The Pulitzer Prize winning photograph ran in Pero’s local paper, but she didn’t find out that her brother was in the picture until after his memorial service.
Pero said she was proud to receive her brother’s certificate on his behalf in front of the statue that immortalizes a moment of his life.
“I’m just so honored and proud to be here today to accept this certificate in honor of my brother,” Pero said. “I was under the impression that when my parents got citizenship papers he automatically became a citizen, and he was, but he didn’t have the certificate.”
Strank, born in Jarabenia, Czechoslovakia, came to the United States in 1922 at age 3 and became an American citizen in 1935 after his father’s naturalization. However, Strank never received official documentation and was listed as a Pennsylvania native.
Gunnery Sgt. Matt D. Blais, detachment commander, Marine Security Guard Detachment Bratislava, Slovaki, discovered Strank was not a natural-born citizen, according to Jonathan Scharfen, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
During the ceremony, Scharfen, a former Marine infantry officer, called Strank an “American hero” and said he hailed from “a long line of famous American immigrants who served their county in a time of war.”
“If you’re 18 or younger when your father is naturalized it’s automatic, but you always want it to be recognized officially and that’s what we’re doing today,” Scharfen said.
Scharfen also said Strank's story represents the contributions that immigrants have made to the United States throughout its history.
Pero thanked Scharfen for his kind words and said she plans to keep her brother’s certificate of citizenship close by and carry on his memory.
“Anytime I’m at one of these services and I hear the (Marines’ Hymn) it just gets to me,” Pero said. “I have to shed a tear no matter where I’m at.”
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