Posted on 05/29/2006 5:52:50 AM PDT by Banat
1,000 Serbs Serving With U.S. Forces in Iraq
About a thousand people from Serbia are on active duty in Iraq, wearing US uniform and fighting alongside the Americans, writes Belgrade daily "Blitz."
Jacqueline (Zhaklina) Chetich's dream came true last Tuesday when, along with 83 other foreigners, she became a U.S. citizen at a ceremony held at a military base near Baghdad. Like Jacqueline, many other Serbs currently serving in Iraq hope to one day become U.S. citizens and earn what they could only dream about in Serbia.
Jacqueline joined the U.S. Forces in Germany three years ago. She took part in Operation Iraqi Freedom and has since completed two tours of duty in the middle-eastern country.
Her American colleagues are happy that she's become a U.S. citizen and say that she more than deserves it given the dedication and courage shown during the numerous military operations she's taken part in so far.
Jacqueline (Zhaklina) Chetich and your 83 colleagues: Welcome to the United States as a citizen and thank you for EARNING YOUR CITIZENSHIP the right way without breaking our laws in the process.
Now that is earned citizenship, real immigration reform.
I think it was Serb Christians that stopped the original Muslim advance into Europe 500 years ago, wasn't it?
Yup, but it was about 700 years ago, on the Field of Kosovo, which was for the Serbs a kind of combined Jerusalem (it held all their major churches and monasteries) and Masada (thanks to the glorious defeat (in worldly terms) which nonetheless stalled the Muslim advance into Europe.
They were trying again when Clinton and the EU stabbed them in the back by providing the Muslims with an airforce.
Is that the American foreign legion?
Welcome to the Serbian Christians. We certainly don't want any Albanian Muslims in the ranks though. Muslims roll grenades into the officers tents, as we found out to our sorry early in the war.
"Specialist Zaklina Cetic has been working in my company for approximately one year now. She is a native of Yugoslavia but has been serving in the United States Army for well over three years. This is her second deployment to Iraq, having served here in OIF I [Operation Iraqi Freedom I] with the First Armored Division based out of Germany.
She is the first person I know who has taken the oath, and along with all the other soldiers, Marines and service members who have become citizens, I don't think there is anyone who can say they have done more to earn their citizenship."
The item says there are 1,000 Serbs in OUR armed forces, and I believe it. The Serbs are brave, patriotic and freedom-loving people, and I am happy to see them and other people of eastern Europe with us, either in this way or in other ways. When I served in the Army, I served with many ethnic Mexicans, many of whom - I can only suppose - had come to this country illegally. They, too, would be glad to earn citizenship for themselves and the members of their family, through military service.
So, she joined U.S. forces in Germany while still a Serb national.
Was she a Serbian refugee living in Germany and if so, what are we doing recruiting nonresident foreign nationals into our armed forces? Are we developing, as another poster asked, a Foreign Legion?
A chance to take on Islam without getting the crap bombed out of you by NATO?
And they sent us a Thank-You note on September 11, 2001.
But I'm sure this will annoy our remaining handful of Serb-hating, Islamofascist cheerleaders here on Free Republic.
Zivela Zhaklina!!!!
You are probably thinking of Charles Martel stopping the Muslims at the Battle of Tours in 732 AD.(Historians, correct me if I'm wrong.)
The Serbs were overrun by the Ottoman Turks in 1389Ad and struggled under the Muslims until 1889AD - 500 years. I guess they know better than anyone what it will be like for Christians to live under Muslim Rule.
I guess that by bombing the Serbs, Bill Clinton showed whose side he is on.
Which is strange after we bombed them mercilessly for no reason at all. The Serb war was different than this war because Clinton acted illegally and unconstitutionally.
The Turkish conquest of Southeast Europe was a slow process. There were crusades against the Turks in 1396 and 1443-44. All the native Christian peoples of the Balkans resisted, and they had help from Hungarians, Venetians, Poles, and western Europeans. It was not until the 1450s and 1460s that Serbia, Bosnia, Albania, and Greece were subdued, and Belgrade wasn't captured until 1521. Some of the Greek islands stayed in Venetian hands for a long time after that--some were never conquered.
After the fall of Belgrade, the Venetians and the Habsburgs deserve a lot of the credit for continuing the defense of Europe, along with the troops of various nationalities fighting for them. And of the course the king of Poland came to the rescue of Vienna when it was being besieged by the Turks in 1683.
There is a military museum in Graz, Austria, which has a lot of suits of armor and weapons from the era of the wars against the Turks--Graz was once near the front lines.
An American Serb serving my beloved country, the USA here in Iraq. :)
Yup. Billy boy violated the NATO charter when he attacked the Serbs who were having an internal civil war.
Get lost, bigot. Why don't you start a petition to demand posthumous revocation of the oaths of enlistment and then visit the families of these two Albanians and demand they give up their purple hearts.
Albania honors emigrant killed in Iraq as U.S. Marine
Associated Press
TIRANA, Albania - President Alfred Moisiu on Tuesday awarded a medal of honor to an emigrant who died fighting as a U.S. Marine in Iraq.
Cpl. Gentian Marku, of Warren, Mich., was killed in Fallujah on Nov. 25. He emigrated to the United States at age 14.
Moisiu awarded Marku, 22, with the Golden Medal of Eagle for the "sublime sacrifice in the fight against terrorism, for the protection of the values of democracy, peace and freedom, by glorifying the honor of his nation."
On Friday, Prime Minister Fatos Nano declared Marku an Albanian martyr.
Marku's body was expected to arrive in Albania Tuesday evening for burial at his native village of Piraj, 42 miles north of the capital, Tirana, accompanied by Marines who were to hand him over to the Albanian troops.
A short military ceremony was to be held at Mother Teresa International Airport attended by Albanian Defense Minister Pandeli Majko and the U.S. Ambassador to Tirana Marcie B. Ries.
Marku was the second Albanian emigrant killed fighting with U.S. troops in Iraq. Pfc. Ervin Dervishi, 21, of Fort Worth, Texas, died Jan. 24 after attackers in Baji fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the vehicle in which he was riding.
Albania, a small, predominantly Muslim country, backed the U.S.-led campaign and has sent 71 of its own troops to Iraq. Three Albanian soldiers were wounded in July when their car ran over a mine in Mosul.
The United States welcomes all immigrants who wish to serve their new country. Serbs can be justly proud of Specialist Jacqueline Chetichs just as Albanians can be proud of Corporal Marku and PFC Dervishi. And every real American would equally honor all their service.
Thanks, man. Just got back from a Memorial Day service. Keep your head down so that we can think of you during Veteran's Day instead!
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