www.statesmanjournal.com

Keizer man pushes for Spanish testing in military

Retired colonel says it would curb recruiting shortage

GABRIELA RICO
Statesman Journal

August 8, 2005

Retired Army Col. Michael F. Valdez says he agrees with military leaders' assertions that you go to war with the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force that you have.

But he also thinks that this country has a huge, untapped resource of willing soldiers who are being excluded from serving the United States.

They are excluded because their desire to serve cannot outweigh their inability to pass the military entrance exam because they don't understand the language.

Valdez proposes remedying that by giving Spanish-speaking immigrants the option of taking the entrance exam in Spanish. That would help the military recruit more soldiers and give immigrants a chance at citizenship as a reward.

"I say, 'Hey, give Oregon a chance; let Oregon be a project state,'" said Valdez, 67, of Keizer. "I believe we can pick up a battalion-size element, right here in Oregon, train them and monitor them closely, teach them English and it would work. Within a year, you would have a trained fighting force."

Citizenship as a reward for U.S. military service already exists.

In July 2002, President Bush signed an executive order that "expedited naturalization for aliens and noncitizen nationals serving in an active-duty status ... during the period of the war against terrorists of global reach."

In October 2004, further benefits were added:


Naturalization processing now is available overseas at U.S. embassies, consulates and military installations.


No fees are required to file for naturalization.


Posthumous citizenship is awarded to active-duty personnel who die in the line of duty, and "special consideration" is given to surviving family members seeking citizenship.

About 45,000 non-U.S. citizens are serving in the military, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reports. Eduardo Aguirre, the director of CIS, said he favors the new approach.

"You and your families demonstrate, with your service, remarkable self-sacrifice for your adopted country," Aguirre told soldiers during a naturalization ceremony in March. "Even before you had secured for yourself the rights associated with American citizenship, you chose to defend our country and answered a call for a cause greater than self."

Locally, recruiting soldiers has not been easy.

At the two Army recruiting centers in Salem, recruiting is 35 percent below this year's goal of 144 soldiers, said Gary Stauffer, a public-affairs officer for the Army's Portland Recruiting Battalion.

"Overall, we're not getting enough," he said.

Still, changing the language on the entrance exam might not be the answer, Stauffer said.

"The Army communicates in English," he said. "You have to be able to communicate."

In the 1990s, the military experimented with soldiers who had limited English-speaking ability. They were allowed to enlist and were taught English, Stauffer said.

But the time and expense of the program made it impractical, he said.

A leader of an immigration-reform group agrees that the language of the military entrance exam should not be changed to accommodate immigrants.

"We would not support any measures of that kind," said Rick Hickey of Salem, the interim vice president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform. "We can't have separate divisions of our military that speak different languages."

Hickey applauded the notion of immigrants who have come to this country legally serving in the military, but he said they must be proficient in English.

"In America, we're a world of people and I love that, but we've got to have a glue," Hickey said. "The language barrier is a concern."

Valdez, who served 14 1/2 years in the Marines and 20 years in the Army, defended his idea.

"The excuses that we can't do things bothers me," he said of people who say that Spanish-language testing is a bad idea. "I'm committed to my people, my race, to see them excel. It hurts me to see them mistreated, discriminated (against). I'm committed to them. I have compassion for them."

Hispanics already are a growing part of the U.S. military, a 2003 report by the Pew Hispanic Center shows.

From 1992 to 2001, although the overall size of the military dropped by 23 percent, the percentage of Hispanics grew by 30 percent, the report states.

Those figures show that the desire is there, Valdez said, and that language should not be a barrier for someone willing to fight for this country.

"Every country that falls, falls from within," the self-described conservative Republican said. "Let's stop whining and pull this mission together."

Valdez likened his proposal to the Vietnam-era Project 100,000.

In 1966, the government accepted into the military people who scored below 20 on the Armed Forces Qualifications Test. They previously had been rejected.

"I am privileged to say that I had many of them in my units that I commanded, and they did an outstanding job," said Valdez, who served three tours of duty in Vietnam as an infantry officer.

At this point, the colonel, who retired in 1991, is a one-man effort to make Oregon a pilot state for a Spanish-language entrance exam into the military.

He is writing to Oregon's U.S. senators and floating his idea to Pentagon officials.

"Hey, there's a war going on and it's only going to get worse instead of better. They should be allowed to take the test in Spanish," Valdez said of immigrants. "They are an asset that's right in our hands, and we've failed to take that asset and put it to use."