A Promise Deferred: Frank Hajart’s
50-Year Wait for Citizenship

BY RICHARD CURREY

Frank Hajart served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1964-67, including a Vietnam tour as a radioman with the 1st Marine Division, 7th Marine Regiment. After discharge he returned to Denver, his home at the time, found work, and, like so many veterans before and after, carried on with his life.

It had not mattered to anyone—not the Marine Corps or his employers in Denver or the Colorado Motor Vehicle Department or any other official government agency—that Hajart was not a U.S. citizen.

“I was supposed to be,” he said. “The Marine Corps recruiter told me that if I enlisted I’d get my citizenship after my service. I thought it was a good deal. I took him at his word.”

Hajart had arrived in the U.S. with his family in 1956. They came from Yugoslavia, via Austria and then France as Hajart’s father intently worked on a way to get his family out of war-blasted Europe.

“America really was the land of opportunity,” Hajart said. “That wasn’t just something people said back then. My father knew that if he could get us all to America we might have a chance at a decent life.”

To gain permission to immigrate, Hajart’s father waded through a mountain of forms and statements, including one that committed his sons to serve in the U.S. military.

“Of course, there was no way of knowing that when my time came to enlist Vietnam would be flaring up,” Hajart said.

Hajart revisited the citizenship issue while in Vietnam. “I asked my captain about it. He said he’d check with higher-ups. In a few days he came back and said, ‘It’s not happening.’ I was not only disappointed, I was angry. I realized the citizenship offer was an empty promise—just a ruse to get me to sign on the dotted line. I told the captain he could take citizenship and put it where the sun don’t shine.”

Hajart laughed as he recalled the episode. “I was a lance corporal, and we didn’t talk to officers that way. But in this case the captain just said, ‘I don’t blame you.’ ”

Hajart finished his enlistment, but his anger simmered. “I decided to hell with it. When I got out of the Corps, I had no plan to pursue citizenship.”

And he didn’t. He went to work and met and fell in love with the woman who would become his wife. “She was an executive secretary with a company looking to expand,” Hajart said. The company had identified a location in Longview, Texas, and the Hajarts made the move.

“My wife and I really wanted kids but were having trouble getting pregnant. We decided to look into adoption. The adoption agency investigated every corner of our lives, our histories, our employment, our finances, everything. But they never asked about citizenship. I assumed it was a dead issue.”

The Hajarts adopted a daughter and later twin boys and lived a good life in East Texas. After retirement, Hajart became active in Longview Chapter 987, as well as other local VSOs. And then, on a day in December 2017, Frank Hajart went into a branch office of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles to renew his driver’s license, something he had done many times before.

“The clerk told me I couldn’t renew,” said Hajart. “I said, Why not? Because you’re not a citizen. I learned that the law had changed. Non-citizens could not get licenses without clearance from Homeland Security.”

So Frank Hajart, a Vietnam veteran who had worked, married, bought a home, adopted children, raised a family, paid taxes, and lived a salutary life in the United States for more than sixty years, was told he was a non-citizen who could not get a driver’s license.

“Fortunately, I’m very active in the veterans community,” Hajart said. He reached out to a friend, Lori Thomas at the East Texas Veterans Resource Center. “She was absolutely crucial in helping me through the citizenship process. I can’t thank her enough for what she did for me.”

Homeland Security cleared Hajart for a driver’s license, he completed the citizenship process, and on August 24, 2018, he took the oath of citizenship in a ceremony attended by family and many friends.

“It was a fantastic day,” he said. “One of the best days of my life.”

The irony is not lost on Hajart. “When I enlisted in the Marines I was told I’d get citizenship after my service. Well, I did. I just didn’t realize it would be fifty years after my service.
As an active member of Chapter 987, Frank Hajart helps with veterans’ funerals, dedication ceremonies, and holiday celebrations. He is an American veteran—and, at last, a proud American citizen.