From service to citizenship

[musika man]

13 people taking the Oath of Allegiance at Fort McHenry had served their country even before it was their country.

Army Sgt. Ayan Mohamed, 26, who left Somalia as a refugee in 1999 and spent nine years in Egypt trying to get to the U.S., was among the first to arrive Monday, along with her mother and sister. A member of a security unit at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Mohamed said she had always wanted to become an American citizen and would have done so even if she had not joined the military, which she did in November 2003. She has not been sent to Iraq.

Now living in Silver Spring, Mohamed said that when she enlisted she was emulating her father, who had been in the Somali army and is now living in exile in Kenya.

Becoming a citizen, Mohamed said, marks a completion of sorts, "like the end to a struggle."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/ ... ?track=rss