Dispatch from Iraq: Pledging allegiance to U.S. on foreign soil

Camp Arifjan, Kuwait,

Aug. 12, 4:12 p.m.

I remember back about 1,000 years ago when I first enlisted in the military. It was the spring of 1981 and I was an 18-year-old high school senior living in Scottsdale, Ariz.

My dad, a U.S. Army veteran, drove me one morning to the recruiting office of the Arizona Air National Guard.

"You DON'T want to join the Army, trust me," he said.

I didn't understand why at the time, but what did I know?

I had seen pictures of my dad taken sometime in the mid- to late-1950s. One, framed in my home, is a black and white photo showing my dad, a medic with the 63rd Engineer Brigade Combat Team/7th Army, posing next to a Jeep as soldiers in the background erect a Bailey bridge over the Rhine River in Germany.

Even so many years later, my dad's unit was still repairing bridges damaged by allied bombing during WWII.

Little did my dad know what an inspiration that photo would be to me later in life.

My dad believed that I would have better accommodations and opportunities in the Air Force as opposed to the Army. He was only half right.

My Air Force brethren do live considerably better than we do in the Army. Especially in the field.

In Afghanistan with the Air Guard we lived in heated tri-walled tents.

Though they were crowded and austere, they were a hell of a lot better than the quarters of the poor guys of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne and 10th Mountain Divisions. They were living in bombed-out and battle-damaged buildings infested with rats.

Air Force chow halls back then were more like five-star restaurants. Hell, we even had waitresses at the Hickham Air Force Base chow hall that would clear our plates and refill our drinks!

So, at my dad's insistence, I joined the Air Force. Eight days after graduating high school, I left for basic training.

I spent the next 121⁄2 years serving both in the Arizona and Nevada Air National Guards with the USAF Security Police.

I deployed twice, once to Cairo, Egypt, and once to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan right after 9/11.

It wasn't until I decided to re-enlist in the Army in 2006 after being out for four years that I realized that the Air Force had taught me nothing of what it is to be a soldier, or a non-commissioned officer.

There was something missing inside me. I wanted to be a part of something bigger and more important than myself. After all, there was a war on, and here was my chance to be a part of it and make a difference.

Nearly 20 years as a police officer, training other police officers, had taught me a lot about leadership, compassion and professionalism.

The Army filled in the blanks.

Everybody has their own reasons for joining the military, whatever branch they choose. Those reasons are varied. Some join for the benefits, the personal challenge, the promise of an education, or to stay out of jail.

Others answer their country's call and join out of a sense of patriotism.

Whatever the reason, few people realize the level of gratitude it takes for a man, not even a citizen of this country, to join because he wants to give something back to the country that gave him the promise of a better life.

Pfc. Mario Nikic

Such a man is Pfc. Mario Nikic (pronounced Nik-eech) of the 1864th Gun Truck Co.

Mario, 28, first came to the United States in early 2002 from Croatia, where he was born and had lived his entire life, as part of a U.S./Croatian student- and work-exchange program.

He'd been a nursing student in Croatia and lived with a host family in Montana while going to school and waiting tables at a restaurant in Yellowstone National Park.

After five months in America, Mario returned to his native Croatia, but soon after realized how much he missed the U.S. and the freedoms and opportunities this country offered.

"It was hard living in a post-war society in Croatia. I was amazed at how people in the U.S. lived free, normal lives," he said. "I wanted to live, and be able to travel and go to work without being judged for what religion I was."

It took Mario an additional two years to secure a visa to travel to the U.S.

"When I came back to the U.S. in 2004, I arrived in New York with nothing more than a suitcase and $30 in my pocket," he said.

He said that it was important to him that if he was going to remain in the U.S., he was going to do it right and do it legally.

Mario lived in New York, Alabama, Montana and finally settled in Las Vegas, working odd jobs and paying taxes while working on his goal of eventually becoming a U.S. citizen.

I asked Mario why he decided to join the Army.

"I was impressed by how the Americans had helped my country. I finally enlisted in September 2007. None of the other branches, not the Navy, Air Force or Marines, could guarantee me that I would deploy any time soon. Only the Nevada Army Guard did," he said.

What makes deploying as a U.S. soldier and facing the possibility of perhaps having to make the ultimate sacrifice for one's country so important?

"When war in Croatia broke out, I was only 10 years old and too young to fight. My family's home and land was burned to the ground by the Muslims and the Serbs. The Americans were fighting our enemies now. I belonged in this war," he said.

For Mario, the goal was to become a U.S. citizen.

After years of hard work and patience, he finally realized that dream when he took his oath of citizenship Aug. 6 at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait.

Thirty-seven other U.S. soldiers and sailors were also sworn in as new American citizens alongside him.

Maj. Gen. James E. Rogers, Commanding General 1st Sustainment Command, administered the oath, accompanied by an Army honor guard and a representative from the U.S Consulate in Kuwait.

For so many of us, we forget how precious our hard-won freedom really is. We even take it for granted.

"When I get to register to vote for the very first time, then it will sink in," Nikic said. "This country wants and accepts me! It's a great reward."