This Memorial Day we once again honor the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service of our country in all wars and conflicts, from the Revolutionary War to the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
One of those heroes is Pfc. Diego Fernando Rincón who died in a suicide bombing attack in Iraq on March 29, 2003.
Rincón “came from” Colombia. He immigrated to the United States when he was five years old and enlisted in the U.S. Army shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Rincón was 19 when he was killed.
“He was so proud to be an American. You know what I mean?” his inconsolable father said through tears about Diego shortly after his son’s death.
The reader might wonder why the words ‘came from’ are in quotes.
A few days ago, emerging from the criminal court proceedings in Manhattan, former president Donald Trump addressed reporters and made some insinuations about presiding Judge Juan Manuel Merchan.
Referring to the judge, Trump urged those listening to “take a look at where he comes from.”
Since I “come from” Ecuador, I was somewhat offended by his choice of words and penned a letter to The New York Times expressing some of my thoughts.
They are included below.
As Mr. Trump well knows, Judge Merchan “comes from” Colombia. He immigrated to the United States when he was 6 and has become one of the most respected and experienced New York State judges.
Interestingly, another judge also “comes from” Colombia. Judge Aileen Mercedes Cannon, who is currently overseeing the classified documents case involving Mr. Trump — a case that she is moving at a “measured” (glacial) pace — was born in Colombia.
Appointed by Trump to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Cannon has been praised by him as being “very smart and very strong…loves our country,” and by Team Trump as “Godsend.”
Others who “came from” elsewhere are closely related to the former president.
His grandfather, Frederick Trump, “came from” Germany. He immigrated to the United Sates when he was 16 and became a successful businessman. But most of all, he was the patriarch of a family that one day would include the 45th president of the United States.
And of course, Melania Trump who “comes from” Slovenia. She arrived in the United States in 1996 and became a successful model, a loving wife and mother and a charming First Lady.
As mentioned, this writer “comes from” Ecuador. I immigrated to the United States when I was 17 and joined the military of my adopted country a year later, where I served faithfully and meritoriously for 20 years.
Finally, at least 764 servicemembers who “came from” other countries have received the Congressional Medal of Honor, the United States’ highest decoration for bravery and self-sacrifice in combat. Forbes wrote a few years ago, “An astonishing fact: More than 20% of the recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor in U.S. wars have been immigrants.”
I do not believe that where one “comes from” matters very much. It is what one does when one “gets there” that is important in life.
It is also what is important in death.
On this Memorial Day weekend, I am reminded of the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of immigrants who have spilled their blood for their adopted country, not poisoned the blood of our country.
While numbers on foreign-born men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their adoptive nation are difficult to find, a 2015 report by New American Economy gives us a glimpse into that figure.
The report, “An Unheralded Contribution: Honoring America’s Fallen Foreign-Born Service Members Post 9/11,” tells us that approximately 300 foreign-born soldiers died in combat just between 2001 and 2013 in the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Afghanistan War would last another eight years.
These fallen immigrants “came from” Mexico, Liberia, Thailand, Jamaica, the Philippines, Guatemala, Pakistan, Haiti, and from more than 60 other countries spanning the globe, including from the same country where Justices Merchan and Cannon “come from.”
To use a person’s origins to malign him or her is unbecoming of a former or future President.
