Gold Star Mothers Reject Legal Resident

The Gold Star Mothers is an organization no woman could possibly want to join. The price of admission is one dead child, in uniform, for the protection of the republic. And it may seem churlish to criticize such a group on Memorial Day, but when people do a stupid and selfish thing, churlish is as churlish does. The group of women has decided that another mother, a legal resident of Yonkers, New York, does not qualify as a member. Staff Sergeant Anthony Lagman died in Afghanistan, and his mother Ligaya Lagman cannot attend the meetings of the other grieving mothers because she is a legal resident and not a citizen of the US.

The Kensington Review takes the idea of citizenship much more seriously than the US government does. The government not only is entitled to the loyalty of its citizens and their sacrifice in time of national need, but the citizens are entitled (yes, entitled by virtue of being citizens) to certain privileges like voting, petitioning for the redress of grievances and free healthcare (because after all, the right to freely assemble is rather circumscribed if one is contagious).

As for immigrants, they come in two varieties, legal and illegal. Legal immigrants are the life blood of the American project. Apart from the Navajo, Algonquin and other native nations, every American is or is descended from legal immigrants (in the case of African Americans, this is a tenuous assertion, and their patriotism and affection for a nation that has never fully accepted them is rather astounding). And by coming into the US under American law, they are already demonstrating the primary principle of citizenship – playing by the rules. Of illegal immigration, none of that is true. The illegals are exploited, often dying in their attempts to evade border patrols, and in the end, their presence undermines support for immigration of any kind. And the American government needs to implement radical reform to address this.

That said, Ms. Lagman has come to the US and legally so. She’s been here three decades. Her son, born in the US and therefore a citizen, died defending the constitution he swore to uphold, in a land halfway around the world. The jihadists shooting at him didn’t ask if his mom carried a Philippine passport or an American one. And Uncle Sam didn’t ask when Sergeant Lagman put on the uniform for the first time. It’s a bit late to worry about that now.

Ben Spadaro, of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2885 in Eastchester, New York, told the New York Daily News his group of vets backed the mother and not the government for which he and his pals risked their lives. "I think a son is a son is a son and a mother is a mother is a mother. I don't want to hurt anyone. We're just a bunch of old men who want see a wrong righted." That bunch of old men are right (as they were throughout the 1940s). For what purpose did those sons of Gold Star Mothers give their lives if not for justice?


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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