Awareness of the huge American Hispanic population brings attention. Such attention is directed at that population and how it participates in the American nation.

This is good news. It has been 50-years since the Mexican American population was recognized in a landmark civil rights Supreme Court case, Hernandez v. Texas. The decision defined the community as a discrete group that was systematically denied equal rights and treatment, despite decades of military and glorious wartime service in the United States military.

Critics of the population constantly berate it for not "assimilating." On the other hand, critics from within the community claim the majority is taking advantage of the community with deceit and outright lying. Most Hispanics reject the notion of being snookered by the majority.

The argument is crystallizing in a new effort by the United States Army to recruit more Mexican American and other Hispanic young people into the military. The Army is increasing its recruiting budget and personnel specifically to recruit Hispanics, That effort is creating a conflict, a conflict led by the usual suspect left-wing radicals that populate the extremist edge of the Hispanic community.

The New York Times: "From 2001 to 2005, the number of Latino enlistments in the Army rose 26 percent, and in the military as a whole, the increase was 18 percent. The increase comes at a time when the Army is struggling to recruit new soldiers and when the enlistment of African-Americans, a group particularly disillusioned with the war in Iraq, has dropped off sharply, to 14.5 percent from 22.3 percent over the past four years."

"We see a lot of confusion among immigrant parents, and recruiters are preying on that confusion," Jorge Mariscal, a radical leftist Vietnam veteran told the New York Times. He is director of the Chicano/Latino Arts and Humanities Program at the University of California, San Diego. Fact: Immigrant enlistments have actually fallen a bit. So, who is being confused?

The New York Times: "Hispanics have long been underrepresented in the Army and in the military as a whole. While Latinos make up 10.8 percent of the Army's active-duty force, a better rate than the Air Force or Navy, they account for 14 percent of the population as a whole." Fact: Hispanic United States Marines are far more numerous than in other services and of their percentage of the population.

Laughingly, the Times and Mariscal ignore the huge enlistment numbers of Mexican Americans in the United States Marines. There are estimates that up to 33% of all Marines that fought in Afghanistan’s liberation from the Taliban were Mexican American. Those estimates are ignored by Mariscal and other critics. In Iraq, the percentage of Mexican American casualties is high because their percentages on the ground --in combat units -- is high.

Mariscal equates his Vietnam experience as an Army draftee with today’s 100 percent volunteer service. That is a misrepresentation of actual facts and history. Are we comparing apples and oranges; and, is that fair?

The New York Times: "…they (Hispanics) are more likely to complete boot camp and finish their military service, according to a 2004 study on Marine recruitment by CNA, a research group that operates the Center for Naval Analyses and the Institute for Public Research. Recruitment studies show that Hispanics' re-enlistment rates are also the highest among any group of soldiers." (emphasis added)

Keeping this in mind, one needs to look to Canada to see American Army deserters Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey have applied for asylum to avoid being sent back to the United States to be prosecuted for desertion. There are an estimated 200 such cases of Americans deserting and fleeing to Canada. Are any Hispanics among them? It does not appear to be so.

The usual suspects have drawn the attention of the New York Times in their anti-recruitment crusades, but are they effective and do they really represent the Hispanic community? The answer is in the New York Times itself.

Recruitment studies show that Hispanics' re-enlistment rates are also the highest among any group of soldiers." (emphasis added)

"The recruiter does not lie, but he does not tell the whole truth," says Fernando Suarez de Solar, anti-war crusader from California that Mariscal defends despite the man’s insult to his own son, Jesus, a gung-ho volunteer United States Marine who died in the early hours of the Iraq war. Mr. Suarez, with no American military experience and few English skills despite a dozen years in the United States told the New York Times: "If you don't know the question to ask, you don't get the information. With language and cultural differences, it's complicated." The Times accepted this lame statement without any counterbalancing view.

The very young people involved resoundingly reject Suarez de Solar and Mariscal. Once again: Recruitment studies show that Hispanics' re-enlistment rates are also the highest among any group of soldiers." (emphasis added) They ask the right questions and answer them themselves by re-enlisting.

Contreras’s newest book—THE ILLEGAL ALIEN: A DAGGER INTO THE HEART OF AMERICA published by Floricanto Press is available and reviewed at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com