Staff Sgt. Julian Lopez, Permanent Contact Station Escondido, Calif., Recruiting Station San Diego stands at attention in the back of the room as Navy and Marine Corps enlistees swear in at the Military Entrance Processing Station in San Diego.

He is an early riser, out of bed by 3 a.m. and on the road to work by 4. His mission: to find highly-qualified men and women to fill the ranks of the Marine Corps.

He reports to his post with razor-sharp creases and a red blood stripe running down the outside of his trousers. Upon his head rests a white cover displaying a golden eagle, globe and anchor. The determination can be seen in his eyes.

Staff Sgt. Julian Lopez, a recruiter assigned to Recruiting Station San Diego has done well early in his recruiting career. Although being a recruiter was not his first choice—he wanted to be a drill instructor—Lopez made the most of it enthusiastically.

“Staff Sgt. Lopez is one of my most consistent and successful recruiters,” said Maj. Kate Germano, commanding officer, RS San Diego. “He is ranked in the top two percent of all my recruiters for consistently meeting the quality and quantity standards when it comes to recruiting.”

Lopez lives by the saying: “Attitude is everything.” By doing so he has earned several awards, including Rookie Recruiter of the Year for Recruiting Station San Diego and several Recruiter of the Month and Quarter awards.

Lopez, a native of Cali, Colombia, came to the U.S. in 1995 at age 16. He joined the Marine Corps’ Delayed Entry Program in August 1996.

Coming from Colombia at his father’s request, Lopez admits not knowing much about the United States except that many people from Colombia think the United States is the best country in the world.

Lopez joined his father in Miami and eventually went to Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, S.C., for recruit training in January 1997 under an aviation logistics supply contract.

As if recruit training was not challenging enough, when Lopez left for boot camp, he did not speak English.

Pvt. James Flaurr and his fellow Company D recruits complete recruit training today.

After he spent his childhood bouncing from one foster home to the next, one Company D Marine found his permanent home in the Marine Corps.

Private James Flaurr, 19, a Terre Haute, Ind., native, lived a life of instability and neglect from the age of three. He and his siblings were taken away from their parents by his aunt, due to his parents’ abusive nature.

Unfortunately, his new home wasn’t much better than the last. After living with his aunt and uncle for three years, a social worker witnessed his aunt strike Flaurr’s brother. They were quickly taken out of the household and put into foster care, where he spent the next seven years in and out of foster homes.

“Living as a foster child was a very lonely life,” said Flaurr. “It was very difficult having to constantly move (to different) homes. I would make friends and then have to leave them within months.”

When Flaurr was 13 years old, he and his sister were adopted into a loving family, but his brother remained in foster care.

“I wasn’t really upset that my brother was separated from us,” he said. “I knew that he was going to a good home and we could still stay in contact. I was just happy to finally have parents who genuinely cared about me.”

His sister married and moved away soon after they were adopted. Flaurr decided to move in with her and her husband after living with his adoptive parents for five years. He admired his brother-in-law who was an assaultman in the Marine Corps and a volunteer fire fighter.

“I wanted to be just like him,” said Flaurr. “He was confident and very physically fit—all of the things I wanted to be.”