'Green-card Marine' prepares for 3rd deployment (CNN)

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By Thelma Gutierrez and Wayne Drash
CNN

Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series on "non-citizens" serving in the U.S. military.

TWENTY-NINE PALMS, California (CNN) -- U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Mario Ramos-Villalta flashes a broad smile from beneath his camouflage cap as he talks about the country he loves and why he became a Marine.

He's fought twice in Iraq and survived an attack on his Humvee in October 2005. Now, he's preparing for deployment to Afghanistan.

Yet he's not even an American. He's a citizen of El Salvador serving in the U.S. military.

"A lot of the papers I get , 'You're a great American,'" the 22-year-old Purple Heart recipient says. "I am not an American citizen yet, but I still fight for it."

He adds, "Sometimes, I do get depressed about still not being a U.S. citizen and going over there."
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more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/19/greencard.marine/index.html