Thursday, January 17, 2013

Being an American

How often do we natural born Americas take our citizenship for granted? Probably as often as we take simply being born for granted. It just happened. We didn't earn it, it was given to us.

This afternoon I crossed paths with Roni who hails from Iraq. I didn't know him before today. He was so excited about passing his exam and becoming an American citizen today that he couldn't contain himself. As he rang me up at the cash register he told me how nervous he was about today's exam and now that he'd passed he was having a big party, tonight, to celebrate his first day as an American.

Even though I had literally sworn my life to support and defend the Constitution and follow the Code of Conduct ("I am prepared to give my life in their defense.") I still take my citizenship, health, and life for granted. I need to remind myself of this more often.

Roni became one of America's newest citizens, today.
For most, it's given; for Roni, it was earned. 

3 comments:

GYNot said...

I'm sure you remember when our mutual friend Mr Laoudi got his citizenship. It was a great day for him and I remember it quite clearly.

GYNot said...

I'm sure you remember the day when our mutual Moroccan friend got his citizenship. I think about that day from time to time, he was so proud and so happy and yes it made me think about how often I take citizenship in the US for granted.

Joe Moreno said...

Yes indeed. I remember that he used to carry around his voter registration card which go me doing that too.