CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo, Feb. 02, 2012 – Georgia Guardsmen of the 3rd Squadron 108th Cavalry Regiment 560th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade assigned to Kosovo Force 15 gathered at a citizenship ceremony for a fellow Citizen Soldier. Staff Sgt. Roderico Mondaca, 36, of Euharlee, Ga., was administered the oath of allegiance by Pamela Hutchings of the Department of Homeland Security US Citizenship and Immigration Service. Colonel Jeffrey J. Liethen, Commander Multi-National Battle Group-East spoke at the ceremony and congratulated Staff Sgt. Mondaca.

With the words, "I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic," Army Staff Sgt. Rodrigo Mondaca, assigned to 3rd Squadron, 108th Cavalry Regiment, formalized what Mondaca has been proving through his actions the past 13 years as a member of the Army National Guard.

“This nation of immigrants is what makes America the strongest nation on the planet,” Liethen said. “Now you can serve our country Sergeant, but really, now you are serving your country.”

It's been a long and winding road to U.S. citizenship for the 36-year-old Mondaca, who moved to the U.S. from Chile in 1983. His mother, who was originally from the Easter Islands, brought the seven-year-old a year before being joined by his father, a captain in the Chilean Marine Corps.

Mondaca eventually made his way to Euharlee, Ga., where he has lived the past 10 years with his wife and four children.

The payoff is that he is now a citizen of the United States, officially a member of the country he has been serving for more than a decade. With the process complete, he had time to reflect on the importance of that fact.

"Citizenship is something a lot of people take for granted," Mondaca said. "If you were from a third-world country, you could appreciate it - it's a big deal."

His new citizenship confers him some tangible benefits, not the least of which is the right to vote for elected officials like the president or travel abroad freely. As a military member, Mondaca said it opens doors - he can now get a security clearance, which is only available to U.S. citizens.

“It feels good,” Staff Sgt. Mondaca said. “There are a lot of things I could not do – vote, travel outside the country things of that nature… It opens a lot of doors.”

Only individuals born in the U.S. are automatically awarded citizenship, and becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen is a time-consuming process that normally takes about two years to complete.

As a member of the U.S. military, Mondaca had to meet citizenship pre-requisites and submit the application forms himself. If he was a member of the active duty forces, Mondaca said, the staff judge advocate office would have done all the paperwork for him, but as a member of the Guard, he had to submit and track it all personally.

It's a process he has wanted to do for years, but never completed until recently. It takes a lot of paperwork, he said, and every time he would start the process something would come up that would prevent him from continuing with the process.

After the required paperwork has been submitted and approved, would-be citizens must take a written English and civics test and conduct an interview with someone from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, formerly the Immigration and Naturalization Services, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security.

The test itself would stump many who are Americans by birth, such as: "In what year was the Constitution written?" or "Who elects the President of the United States?" ("1787" and "electoral college," respectively).

According to Pamela Hutchings, the USCIS official that administered the naturalization oath, nearly 65,000 military members have become U.S. citizens since 2001. The agency granted citizenship to 11,146 service members in fiscal year 2010, the highest number in any year since 1955.

It's a Congressional mandate the oath must be administered within six months of final approval, making it a requirement she travel from her headquarters in Austria, but she considers it an honor and a pleasure when she can swear in a new U.S. citizen. And although his wife and children couldn't be here for the ceremony, she said, his peers were on hand to help him celebrate the occasion.

Staff Sgt. Mondaca is a member of the 3-108th Long Range Surveilance (LRS). The unit is presently serving a 12 month tour in Kosovo.

"Even though your first family isn't here," she said as she looked out at the large crowd of Georgia ANG soldiers in attendance, "your second family is out here in force."

Story and photo by Sgt. 1st Class James Wagner

Vermont National Guard