Shoot and you get to use the parachute

Max Boot:

RECENTLY, I HAPPENED to read two of the best military memoirs ever published: "Bugles and a Tiger" and "The Road Past Mandalay." Both were written by John Masters, a British officer with a literary flair who joined the Indian army in 1934, participated in one of the last imperial campaigns on the Northwest Frontier, invaded Iraq to overthrow a pro-German dictator in 1941 and then led a commando brigade operating behind Japanese lines in Burma.

His writing is suffused with nostalgia for the regiment in which he served in the 1930s, the Prince of Wales' Own 4th Gurkha Rifles. The Nepalese tribesmen known as Gurkhas have been fighting under the Union Jack since 1815. Masters was rapturous in describing their "straightness, honesty, naturalness, loyalty, courage" — all qualities illustrated in a famous anecdote about a group of Gurkhas who in 1940 were asked to jump out of an airplane.

Only 70 men came forward at first. One hundred were needed. The British officers, crestfallen, "called upon the sacred honor of the regiment and vowed that parachutes never — well, hardly ever — failed to open." Upon hearing this, a lance naik (lance corporal) happily exclaimed, "Oh, we jump with these parachutes, do we? That's different."

And thereupon the entire regiment volunteered.

The British Empire is long gone, but the Gurkhas remain in British service — and in the service of such erstwhile British colonies as India and Singapore. They have continued to distinguish themselves — from the 1982 Falkland Islands war to the ongoing war in Iraq.

The Gurkhas' glittering record is worth mentioning because we are in the midst of a heated debate over immigration. The crux of the discussion is: To whom, and under what conditions, should we grant American citizenship?

Lost in the uproar has been an idea so meritorious that it should win universal assent: Create a fast track toward citizenship for those willing to serve a stint in the United States armed forces.

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There is more. The Gurkhas are spirited fighters. It has been surprising tht they have not been curned loose against the Maoest trying to subjegate their native land of Nepal.