Green card for slain Fil-Am trooper?

WASHINGTON — The brother of the first Filipino soldier killed in Iraq will fight to gain posthumous United States citizenship for him.

US media have described Marine Sgt. Joseph Menusa, 33, as the first Filipino-American soldier killed in the war against Iraq. Technically, however, he was still a Filipino when he died, not having been naturalized yet as a US citizen.

"My brother, even though he wasn’t a citizen, fought for this country and for what he believed in. No one, none of these protesters (who are against the war in Iraq), can take that away from him," David Menusa, a US Marine drill instructor and Joseph’s younger brother, told Tracy Press in an interview.

Joseph — known as "Joe" among relatives and friends — was among the scores of permanent residents or green card holders in the US who, for whatever reason, do not apply to become citizens although they are eligible to do so after five years of residence. Then there are those who volunteer to serve in the military to speed up their naturalization process.

The Menusa brothers were born in the Philippines. The family moved to San Jose, California in 1980 where Joseph and David went to high school. They moved to Tracy, California in 1990.

Joseph and his widow Stacy lived in Tracy from 1992 to 2002, while he was a Marine Corps recruiter. They have a 3-year-old son, Joshua.

Tracy Press, writing about the Menusas, said "Joe Menusa’s job was to make the Marine Corps look as attractive as possible to a recruit, and David’s was to give them hell once they enlisted."

Eric Lachica, executive director of the American Coalition for Filipino Veterans, said he was trying to reach Joseph’s parents, brother and widow to assist them in getting him a posthumous US citizenship.

"I am talking with aides of Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Lois Capps (both Democrats from California) to research and introduce a ‘private bill’ that will grant immediate citizenship to our GI Joe — hopefully by the time he is buried," Lachica said.

Joseph, a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War, was killed in action last Thursday.

It was earlier reported that he was killed when his battalion clashed with a Republican Guard unit, one of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s best troops.

Joseph’s unit was the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division, Camp Pendleton, California, where he specialized in construction and demolition, according to the Washington Post.

He had been stationed in California, Hawaii, Okinawa in Japan, and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Most recently he had been doing recruitment for the Marines in the San Francisco Bay area.

As Joseph Menusa was being hailed as a hero and patriot, another US Marine identified as a Filipino-American declared he was a conscientious objector and refused to go to war in Iraq.