Oshkosh soldier becomes an American citizen while serving in Afghanistan

OSHKOSH - An Oshkosh soldier formally became an American citizen on November 2 while serving in Afghanistan.

Sgt. Luis Cortes-Avila, 24, is a motor transport operator with the Wisconsin Army National Guard's 1157th Transportation Company.

He was only a month old when his parents moved to California from their native Mexico. Cortes-Avila's family then moved to Wisconsin when he was 11.

After hearing stories about a friend's deployment to Iraq, Cortes-Avila decided to join the National Guard after high school.

“I just decided to join, because I didn’t want to regret (not joining the military) later on, and I love driving. So I decided to go to a (transportation) school,” Cortes-Avila said in a release.

Cortes-Avila's parents began the citizenship process when he was still in high school. But first his family had to officially establish residency and then came the waiting period before they could be considered for citizenship.

“It was a quicker process when you are in the military and since I already had my residency, I found out that I could do it here on post. So I decided I would just get that out of the way, so I wouldn't have to deal with it when I got back,” said Cortes-Avila in a release.

The 1157th left Wisconsin in February and arrived in Afghanistan in April. From then on, Cortes-Avila was hard at work studying for his citizenship exam.

“I created note cards, and I had different people from my platoon quiz me throughout times when we’d go to the motor pool,” he said in a release. “So it was really good to get the support from my platoon.”

Cortes-Avila is a graduate of Marion University in Fond du Lac. He plans to go into the ministry once his unit returns home in mid-January. He hopes to join the staff of a campus ministry organization at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Cortes-Avila also hopes to use his citizenship to travel outside the United States for ministry.