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# Kosovo: Georgia Guard's newest citizen Soldier

By Army National Guard Sgt. 1st Class James WagnerVermont National Guard

CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo - Multinational Battle Group East's newest U.S. citizen, a supply sergeant from the Georgia Army National Guard, was congratulated with cheers by his fellow Americans at a naturalization ceremony in the Medal of Honor Hall, Jan. 20.

With the words, "I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic," Army Staff Sgt. Rodrigo Mondaca, assigned to 3rd Squadron, 108th Cavalry Regiment, formalized what's been he has been proving through his actions the past 13 years as a member of the Army National Guard.

It's been a long and winding road to U.S. citizenship for the 36-year-old Mondaca, who moved to the U.S. from Chile in 1983. His mother, who was originally from the Easter Islands, brought the seven-year-old a year before being joined by his father, a captain in the Chilean marine corps.

Mondaca eventually made his way to Euharlee, Ga., where he has lived the past 10 years with his wife and four children.

The payoff is that he is now a citizen of the United States, officially a member of the country he has been serving for more than a decade. With the process complete, he had time to reflect on the importance of that fact.

"Citizenship is something a lot of people take for granted," Mondaca said. "If you were from a third-world country, you could appreciate it - it's a big deal."

His new citizenship confers him some tangible benefits, not the least of which is the right to vote for elected officials like the president or travel abroad freely. As a military member, Mondaca said it opens doors - he can now get a security clearance, which is only available to U.S. citizens.

Only individuals born in the U.S. are automatically awarded citizenship, and becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen is a time-consuming process that normally takes about two years to complete.

It's a process he has wanted to do for years, but never completed until recently. It takes a lot of paperwork, he said, and every time he would start the process something would come up that would prevent him from continuing with the process.

After the required paperwork has been submitted and approved, would-be citizens must take a written English and civics test and conduct an interview with someone from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, formerly the Immigration and Naturalization Services, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security.

The test itself would stump many who are Americans by birth, such as: "in what year was the Constitution written?" or "who elects the President of the United States?" ("1787" and "electoral college," respectively).

According to Pamela Hutchings, the USCIS official that administered the naturalization oath, nearly 65,000 military members have become U.S. citizens since 2001. The agency granted citizenship to 11,146 service members in fiscal year 2010, the highest number in any year since 1955.

It's a Congressional mandate the oath must be administered within six months of final approval, making it a requirement she travel from her headquarters in Austria, but she considers it an honor and a pleasure when she can swear in a new U.S. citizen. And although his wife and children couldn't be here for the ceremony, she said, his peers were on hand to help him celebrate the occasion.

"Even though your first family isn't here," she said as she looked out at the large crowd of Georgia ANG soldiers in attendance, "your second family is out here in force."

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