Marine Officer - Capt Ricardo Hernandez

<span> <p> <img style="float: none;" src="http://assets2.marines.com/assetmgr/image/disp/inline/size/460x259/id/254567" alt="Capt Ricardo Hernandez <br /> Air Traffic Control Officer" /><h2>The Opportunity to Succeed</h2>Capt Ricardo Hernandez:<br /> I always knew that I wanted to go to college. I knew that I wanted to do well in life, and I wanted to succeed. And I didn´t exactly know how I was going to do that. My parents, we were a lower middle-class family. I knew that I couldn´t very much count on my parents to help me out, although, I´m sure they would have made the sacrifices. But they still had my younger siblings to take care of. So I knew I had to do something on my own. And that´s why the military service became a really attractive option for me. And when I considered military service, to me, there was no other service other than the Marine Corps. The Marines were- they were tough and they were all about discipline. And for me, I knew that that was the right way to go. I needed somebody to focus me in the right direction, and I knew that the Marine Corps could do that for me. I never considered making the Marine Corps a career. I joined for four years. My plan was join the Marine Corps, kind of get a sense of direction, they´ll teach me a skill that I can, then, after four years come out and then practice in the civilian world. Early on, in my career, this was probably about 1997, about two years after I joined the Marine Corps, I did really well. I was meritoriously promoted to Corporal, so I was getting promoted relatively quickly, and I made Sergeant in two-and-a-half years. Once I saw that the Marine Corps was taking a chance on me and opening up a door for me, I never looked back again. And here I am, a Captain with 14 years.<hr /><h2>Choosing Integrity</h2>Hernandez1Marines 1:02<br /> <br /> Capt Ricardo Hernandez:<br /> Marines always talk about integrity, you know. That you don´t, you don´t lie, you don´t cheat, you don´t steal. You´re an honest broker, you´re an honest man. You never say one thing yet do another.<br /> <br /> There´s a mutual trust there between officers and enlisted. The enlisted men trust that their officers are gonna make the right decisions and have their best interest at heart. At the same time officers trust that their young enlisted men are not gonna feed them some sort of, you know, skewed view of things. You know, they´re gonna be honest brokers also. So I think that the difference is just basically what we wear on our, on our collars because at the root of it all, we´re Marines and we are working towards the same goal. We´re working to accomplish the same mission. And I think that the Marine Corps does a really great job of trying to always instill that in its Marines.<br /> <hr /><h2>Monitoring the Airspace</h2>Hernandez2MOS 1:25<br /> <br /> Capt Ricardo Hernandez:<br /> My MOS is 7220 Air Traffic Control Officer. When you´re [a] brand new lieutenant, you get your initial qualifications as an air traffic controller, but beyond that your job is to have a general view, broad view of general air traffic control operations. As an Air Traffic Control Officer, you´re expected to know, you know, your airspace; you´re expected to know, you know, what aircraft are transiting, and what the rules are, you know, for those aircraft going across your airspace. When we were out there in Iraq, you know, we had a certain chunk of airspace and that was our airspace that we were responsible for, so anything that happened in and around that airspace was our responsibility. So we´ve got radarscopes that assist us, you know, with being able to track aircraft. We have all, all sorts of cool widgets and gadgets that, that help us to control traffic, but in a nutshell that´s, that´s what we do. So, you can walk into any air traffic control facility and see what the civilians are doing. Essentially that´s what we´re doing except we do it with cool, you know, multimillion-dollar aircraft.<br /> <br /> Air Traffic Control Officers are actually trained by their enlisted men, but a lot of people might say, see this and say, "Oh God, you know, wait a minute." You know, those are the guys I´m in charge of and, you know, if they´re training me, you know, that´s, that´s not a good thing because I should be training them. Well, remember it´s a mutual respect thing.<br /> <hr /><h2>Always a Marine</h2>Hernandez3SetExample :44<br /> <br /> Capt Ricardo Hernandez:<br /> The American public has a certain perception of its Marines and we do our best to uphold that image. I think that the hardest thing about being a Marine is, is the fact that it´s 24/7. That no matter what you do, whether you´re walking down the street, whether you´re, you´re executing the, the responsibilities of your job, or, you know, throwing a ball at the ballpark, you need to remember you´re a Marine. And what does that mean? That means that you´re well dressed, that means that you´re well spoken, that means that you´re an honorable man, you´re committed to your cause, and that you´re setting a good example all the time and every time no matter what it is that you´re doing. The greatest honor is to be able to say that I have led Marines.<br /> <hr /> </p> </span>

The greatest honor is to be able to say that I have led Marines, that I have inspired Marines.
—Capt Ricardo Hernandez

Enlisted: 1995
Commissioned: 2003
Commissioning Program: Marine Enlisted Commissioning Education Program
Education: University of New Mexico

Growing up in Los Angeles in the early nineties, Captain Hernandez never imagined himself as a Marine Officer. Once he became a Marine, he rose to the challenge in ways that even surprised him.

Now a captain with 14 years of service in the Marine Corps, Hernandez has seen the world, earned a degree and built a career. He reached his goals, then reached even greater ones. As an officer, it is his privilege and responsibility to provide young Marines with the same quality of leadership that inspired him to succeed.

Marines. The Few. The Proud.

Capt Ricardo Hernandez
Air Traffic Control Officer

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Marines. The Few. The Proud.

Capt Ricardo Hernandez Air Traffic Control Officer

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Capt Ricardo Hernandez
Air Traffic Control Officer