An Army of Uno

The soft-spoken Bronx native says that recruiters often lie, or at least tell half-truths, about the realities of life in the military. And Paredes, whose mother is Puerto Rican and father is Ecuadorian, is especially worried about recruitment of working-class immigrants and Latinos — whether it's the Leaders Among Us campaign, the sleek "Go Army" Hummers, or the events featuring DJs from Latin music stations. He's heard tales of recruiter abuse targeting undocumented parents where "there'll be this sort of 'wink-wink' action with the recruiter saying if you want to get your citizenship, sign this piece of paper so your son can enlist." He mentions the Army recruiter who got busted in Tijuana a few years back trying to track down a couple of potential recruits. "What are they doing there?" he asks.

As the war in Iraq grows increasingly unpopular, the U.S. military is struggling to meet its recruiting goals. African-American enlistments in the Army, for example, dropped from 24 percent in fiscal year 2000 to only 14 percent in 2005, according to a 2005 study by David Segal, director of the Center for Research on Military Organization. Meanwhile, the number of non-citizens in the military has risen — there are now about 35,000 "green card" service members, an increase from the 23,000 who were serving in 2000. And more than 32,000 have become U.S. citizens since the Bush administration announced expedited citizenship for members of the armed services in 2002, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Altogether, it's estimated there are about 105,000 foreign-born members of the armed services. And many in the military are pushing to recruit more immigrants.

Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney and West Point professor, argues that immigrants are a critical asset in national defense. She points out that this is nothing new — immigrants have served in the U.S. military since the Revolutionary War. She cites the countless Filipinos who fought for the U.S. during World War II, as well as undocumented immigrants who served with distinction during the Vietnam War. There have also been the "no-card soldiers," an unknown number of undocumented immigrants who've enlisted and fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We take a lot of immigrants now," Stock says. "And nobody in the military is complaining." She says that one immigration bill in particular may create a path for more immigrants to enlist, and in doing so assist the armed services as they struggle to find eligible soldiers. The Development, Relief and Education Act (also known as the DREAM Act or American Dream Act) could each year directly affect 65,000 graduating immigrant students, many of whom are Latinos. It would allow undocumented immigrants who meet certain qualifications — entering the U.S. before the age of 16, having at least five years continuous presence here, and a clean criminal record — to be eligible for citizenship following at least two years of military service.

Most non-citizen service members were born in Mexico or the Philippines, followed by countries like Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Haiti. California contributes far more non-citizen recruits than any other state.

Angel liked being a Marine. He made friends, loved learning to drive trucks, and even felt ready when he got word he was being deployed to Iraq. "I was fine," he says. "After all the training, I was really confident."

But training didn't prepare him for everything. During his first deployment, one of his best friends died after being shot in the head with an AK-47. Angel took the death especially hard because his friend had a son. He went numb. "I didn't care about anything," he says. "I didn't care about me or nothing." When people shot at him, he just shot back. He says that he knows now he was furious over his friend's death. "It got me really, really angry at Iraqi people, you know, so I didn't care," he says. "I was thinking, "Well, if I don't kill them, they will kill me.'" But, he adds, he only shot at people who had weapons.

When he returned to the U.S. for a few months in late 2004 and early 2005, he was stationed at Camp Pendleton in Southern California. He bought a truck, a silver Chevy S-10, and drove up to visit his family when he could. Before too long, Angel — now a lance corporal — got word that he was headed back for a second deployment.

The blast that forever changed his life happened a month and a half after he returned to Iraq, in April 2005. He was driving during a night mission outside of Ramadi when he got hit by an improvised explosive device. Angel remembers everything, except how he was able to stop his truck without crashing into others in the convoy. There was a lot of blood. He couldn't feel the left side of his head. His friend and another Marine rushed him to a Humvee, and kept him from touching the shattered fragments of his skull and his brain.

He blacked out and when he came out of his coma 15 days later, he was back in the U.S., in a hospital on the East Coast. Angel, who'd lost about one-third of his skull and some badly damaged segments of his brain, was then transferred to the VA polytrauma rehabilitation center in Palo Alto, one of four facilities of its kind in the country.