The hardest way to become a U.S. citizen: no war has produced more posthumous American citizens than the Iraq War.

• Author: Haberman, Clyde
• Position: OPINION

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On an August day when some Iraqi's homemade bomb tore through him, Corporal. Juan Mariel Alcantara became an American. He never got to appreciate the honor.

A little-discussed detail, of this war is that some of those fighting in it as soldiers of the United States are not American citizens. Overall, about 21,000 noncitizens are serving in the U.S. armed forces, the Defense Department says.

Until death claimed him on August 6, one of them was Corporal. Alcantara of the United States Army. He did not live long enough to acquire a richly textured biography. He was born in the Dominican Republic, and grew up in New York.

At 22, Alcantara was old enough to have talked about going to college and maybe becoming a police officer, old enough to have a fiancee. He was old enough, too, to have sought American citizenship.

Every year, thousands of noncitizen soldiers do that, through an accelerated naturalization process offered to those who put themselves in harm's way so that the rest of us can go about our lives untouched by war. Some of those soldiers become citizens only after they have literally been wrapped in the flag.

No other war has produced anywhere near as many posthumous citizens as this one, according to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Corporal. Alcantara is the latest, No. 103. He is the 12th s from New York, an honor roll that includes 10 men and 2 women born in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica...