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Wednesday, May 07, 2003
Two quick links:

White House Clarifies Bush's Carrier Landing

The White House said today that President Bush traveled to the carrier Abraham Lincoln last week on a small plane because he wanted to experience a landing the way carrier pilots do, not because the ship would be too far out to sea for Mr. Bush to arrive by helicopter, as his spokesman had originally maintained.

Allowing Those Who Fight for Their Country to Be a Part of It

Diego Rincon decided to fight for this country after the World Trade Center was struck by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001. He was a poor 18-year-old immigrant from Colombia, the son of a carpet cleaner.

He was not a citizen; he only had a green card. But he joined the Army in his hometown, Conyers, Ga., five months after the attack.

"He knew he had to do something," Jorge Rincon, his father, said in an interview. "His heart told him what to do."

On March 29, Mr. Rincon was killed in a suicide bombing attack while on duty in Iraq. He was among 10 immigrant soldiers killed during the war in Iraq, and their deaths have touched off a flurry of efforts in Congress to create laws to speed up the naturalization process for noncitizens serving in the United States military.