Soldier a posthumous American

First, they lost their son to a suicide bomber. Then they lost their privacy to the media hordes that followed.

They aren't U.S. citizens, but Jorge and Yolanda Rincon have never wavered in their devotion to the American ideals their son died defending.

Freedom, liberty, religion. The American dream.

They're the same ideals that inspired Pfc. Diego Fernando Rincon to enlist in the Army after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

"Diego gave everything he had for us, for you, for me, for everyone, without any hesitation and without any question," his father, Jorge Rincon, said in an interview with the Deseret Morning News. "He loved this country."

It's because of that devotion to the American dream that America's Freedom Festival at Provo will honor the Rincon family during the Stadium of Fire Saturday.

The Rincon family moved to Georgia from Colombia when Diego Rincon was 5 years old. Diego fell in love with his new home and considered himself an American.

"He was always so proud to be here," Yolanda Rincon said.

Jorge Rincon said he moved the family to the United States from Colombia to escape the guerrilla warfare that rocked the South American country.

But moving to the States didn't set the family free from the woes of terrorism. The attacks on Sept. 11 broke Diego Rincon's heart, his mother said, and he signed up for duty to prevent another attack on America.

On March 29, 2003, a suicide bomber posing as a taxi driver detonated a bomb at an Army roadblock outside An Najaf, Iraq, killing 19-year-old Diego Rincon and three other soldiers serving in the Third Infantry Division — Pfc. Michael Russell Creighton-Weldon, Sgt. Eugene Williams and Army Cpl. Michael Edward Curtin.

Jorge and Yolanda Rincon know their son died with honor, and they refuse to harden their hearts against the government because of their son's death. That's not what Diego Rincon would want, Jorge Rincon said.

"I'm not going to be like other families of the soldiers who got killed in Iraq that have complained about the government and the president," Jorge Rincon said. "I'm following Diego's example to be like that."

Just weeks after his death, the U.S. Senate passed a law that grants immediate U.S. citizenship to immigrant soldiers who die in combat. Diego Rincon was honored with a title he had always sought — U.S. citizen.