PROVO — Uncle Sam finally whispered the words in Ramon Sanft's ears that almost anyone who knew him had shouted for years.
Sanft, 56, Provo, is one of Uncle's truest, red-white-and-bluest sons.
When that was officially affirmed Monday as Sanft took the Oath of Allegiance, becoming a U.S. citizen after a long bureaucratic battle, many friends and neighbors said it was about time this happened to one already beautiful American.
"The description of Ramon as a war hero is an understatement of his character," Utah Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, said of Sanft, who fought as a Marine in Vietnam, took a frontal mine shrapnel blast and earned a Purple Heart, all after arriving in the Salt Lake area at age 12 from Tonga.
"Ramon is one of those rare individuals who lives and breathes the words 'patriot' and 'salt of the earth,' " said Bramble, who lives one cul-de-sac over from the Sanft family and is in the bishopric of the Edgemont 16th ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where the Sanfts belong.
"He loves his country so much, so loyal, so sincere, he made me want to become what he is, a better American," said Lena Vaieland, Provo, who works with Ramon's wife, Sue Sanft, at the Oakridge School for special children.
"This is what I fought for. This is what I was wounded for," said the soft-spoken Sanft, holding a letter from the president after being sworn in by Steve Branch, officer in charge of the Immigration and Naturalization Service's Salt Lake City sub-office. For a moment Monday, Sue Sanft was afraid what Charlie couldn't do in the bush in 'Nam, Ramon might do to himself with some death-defying Spiderman antics atop the family home, attaching bunting for a celebration later that day.
"He was up there almost upside-down on the rain-gutter and I said, 'Ramon, you've waited 33 years. Don't kill yourself the morning you're getting sworn in,' " Sue said, laughing.
As usual, Ramon had risen at 5:45 a.m. and gone to his job as operations manager at Bailey's Moving and Storage Co., Orem, where he's worked 31 years — manning his post even on his big day.
"Work had to be done," he said simply. It took a ton of teamwork by devoted people in both state and federal government, running interference past seemingly endless Keystone Kops regulatory hurdles, to get Ramon naturalized.
A records center burned down in St. Louis, destroying copies of Ramon's honorable discharge. It took months of persistence to produce duplicates from storage in Washington, D.C.
Another service document, certifying a clean record while on duty, kept snagging along the paper path.
"It just kept getting lost between here and there," said Corey Norman, who logged hundreds of hours on Ramon's behalf as a caseworker in the office of Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, where the swearing-in took place.
"I think Corey got cauliflower ear on the phone," Ramon said. "I also want to thank Sharon Garn in Sen. (Orrin) Hatch's (R-Utah) office for all her efforts."
Then there was the Great Fingerprint Snafu. Officials said Ramon's hands were too calloused to get good impressions. "I said, 'You've got to be kidding. What do you do for a citizen with no hands?' " said Shahara Sanft, Ramon's daughter, one of his six children who tirelessly battled the paperwork blizzard to get him naturalized.
Ramon wore salve and gloves for weeks and passed the fingerprint test.
Then there was a police-record marathon. Ramon had been in a street fight as a teenager before joining the Marines. Since it was a minor infraction and dropped, that made it paradoxically more complex.
"They said, 'When a matter is so minor that it's dropped, we don't keep a record of it.' They couldn't give us a piece of paper that doesn't exist, but according to regulations, we had to show it didn't exist," said Bramble, who put in several long days at assorted federal, state and county offices unraveling the issue.
It was only when, exasperated, he showed his state senator identification that officials brightened and produced a workable document. "Imagine that. This thing actually meant something," Bramble said, chuckling and fishing out his ID, but shaking his head at his grapples with city hall. Now that Ramon's a citizen, the "Star Spangled Banner" means a little travelin' music. He was going Monday afternoon to register to vote.
"If I get rolling, I can make the November elections," he said. Then his passport.
"I can finally travel overseas with my wife. Maybe Germany first because the boys were there," he said of missionary work by three of his sons.
"All I can say is that my dad is finally a true American," said Shahara Sanft. "He fought a long time to become what many people take for granted every day."
E-MAIL: gtwyman@desnews.com