Posted on 04/18/2003 4:00:31 PM PDT by LUVYA DUBYA 2000
A Son at War
As FOX News Live anchor David Asman has mentioned on air, his son is currently serving with the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq. You (FOX Fans) have asked about his status, so we caught up with David to find out what he's heard from his son, Felipe. Here's what he had to say:
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
AT WAR
Felipe, U.S. Marine
"Now I can earn my citizenship."
BY DAVID ASMAN
Thursday, January 2, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST
Three years ago, on the night of his 19th birthday, my wife and daughter and I took my stepson to dinner. The restaurant was one of New York's best. But none of us at the dinner remember even tasting the food. This was not just a birthday celebration. Felipe had decided about a month earlier that he was going to quit college to join the Marines. The very next day he was heading off to boot camp. Dinner went down hard that night.
At 4 a.m. the next day, Felipe stood at the door, ready to head off to Parris Island, S.C. I still wasn't convinced he knew exactly what he was getting himself into. Like many families with teenagers, we had been through rough times in the preceding years. Through all the lectures about responsibility and discipline and the standard nonresponse of rolling eyeballs, there were few moments of mutual understanding or tenderness. So when Felipe looked me square in the face and told me he loved me, I was completely caught off guard. It wasn't just that I hadn't heard that from him in years; this was an expression of love from a man who had a full measure of its meaning. I realized then that he knew exactly what he had committed himself to.
Like other affluent youth who've joined up, Felipe's decision baffled his friends and teachers. In fact, no one in his Upper West Side prep school could remember the last graduate who had joined the Marines. But what made Felipe's decision particularly remarkable was that he wasn't even a citizen when he joined.
I had brought Felipe and his mother to the U.S. from Nicaragua in 1988. Because of enormous snafus with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Felipe had turned 18 without having his papers for citizenship approved. The INS had misplaced documents that my wife had sent them two years earlier. When I asked him whether he was bitter that the country he was about to serve had fouled up in granting him citizenship, he mused that maybe it was better this way: "Now I can earn my citizenship."
My pride in him practically burst at that moment, though there were to be many other days of feeling such pride, not the least of which was watching him graduate as a Marine private after three months of boot camp.
His mother's appreciation of Felipe's decision to join up took a bit more time to develop. In her experience growing up in Nicaragua, the military was almost always the enemy--whether fighting the National Guard of the Somoza dictatorship or the secret police of the Sandinistas. So when Felipe expressed interest in joining the Marines, we had to introduce her to the very different world of the U.S. armed forces. With time, and the help of good friends who had served, she warmed up to the idea and was as giggly as I was at Felipe's advances and promotions--until Sept. 11, 2001.
On that morning, I was sitting at my desk when I noticed the sound of a low-flying plane just outside my midtown window. A few minutes later I got a call to rush down to the newsroom floor to broadcast a report to our affiliates about a plane crash at the World Trade Center. Just as I ran into the studio, the second plane hit the south tower. At that point we all realized this was no accident. I could see the shock and anguish in the faces of the producers just outside the glass enclosed, soundproof studio. That one moment of shock--lasting perhaps a few seconds before the adrenaline kicked in and folks sprang into action--has become a frozen tableau that I can't shake.
I spent the rest of the day sucking in my own feelings, trying to report on air as coolly and calmly as I could whether our airspace had been secured; whether our reporters were safe, and whether our nation was still under attack. When I finally went home that night, my wife and I were emotional wrecks, barely knowing what to say. But my daughter was clear: Her concern was that her Marine brother might be sent into action. "I don't want to become an only child," she cried to her mother and me. That started us all crying and provided a target on which we focused our anxiety, our sadness and our prayers.
Felipe was in Okinawa at the time of the attack. He called us shortly after to say that he was likely to be shipped with fellow Marines "to the region." He wouldn't say exactly where that was, but we figured out when he added, "I'm willing to make the full sacrifice if I have to." My wife had been holding up pretty well until that point.
But then Felipe said something that should be considered by all those with children in the military. "I'm prepared to fight under any condition and fire practically any weapon," Felipe began. "And I'm not the target. You aren't prepared for war and you are the target. So who should be afraid for whom?" That simple wisdom stopped us cold. For a brief moment he had forced us to stop worrying about him and consider the risks of simply living in a free country.
Today Felipe is a corporal. He is an expert marksman and has no doubt that he will carry out every order as a Marine in the difficult days ahead. But he's not a gung-ho airhead. He remains a thoughtful sensitive man, who wants war no more than Barbra Streisand (and has far more to lose than she).
Like most Marines, he is an extremely hard worker, putting in long hours for little direct compensation. He's modest about his faith, in practice and expression. But he knows it is faith that will see him through. He is generous to a fault, and his generosity extends beyond his circle of friends and loved ones.
In short, Felipe embodies those notions of U.S. citizenship that the world used to acknowledge and in which we all used to take pride. Those who would describe us today as greedy and self-centered should look around and try to find another group who would sacrifice as much and fight as hard for others to share our liberties.
And those among us who would deny immigrants the opportunity to join in our good fortune should ask whether they have earned their citizenship with as much grit and passion as this 22-year old Marine corporal. In the days of an all-volunteer military, not bloody likely.
But to paraphrase Felipe, we're all in it together now. Neutrality is not an option when all those who favor freedom have been targeted. I'm just glad Felipe realized freedom was something worth fighting for three years ago.
Mr. Asman is an anchor at the Fox News Channel and host of "Forbes on Fox."
His son, like all the others that we've seen with mic's stuck under their chins this past month, gives us hope for our future.
I would say second only to Brit Hume for being a tough interviewer if he wants.
If I had the power I would grant this fine young man citizenship in a nanosecond.
I would say second only to Brit Hume for being a tough interviewer if he wants.
I agree with both of those statements... David and Brit are among the very best on Fox News!
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent FoxFan list.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.