Master Sgt. Elder Gomez

Master Sgt. Elder Gomez, 34, is 4th Assault Amphibian Battalion's logistics chief, but also the unit's stand-in first sergeant working to mentor Marines under his command. He has served nearly 17 years in uniform, six on active duty, and made a handful of deployments including one to Iraq during the 2003 invasion. Most recently, he deployed to an unnamed country in U.S. Northern Command, leveraging his Spanish fluency to teach foreign troops close quarters battle techniques.

Beyond playing a pivotal role in his unit, Gomez is also a stalwart of the Alvin, Texas, community located just south of Houston. There he serves as a deputy sheriff for Brazoria County, where he is also a team leader and tactics instructor for the county SWAT team. Much of his work is done in the city's "barrio," a poor section of town plagued by gangs and drugs where he himself grew up.

His early struggles in life as the poor son of Mexican immigrants who moved to Texas in the 1980s before earning citizenship allow him to gain the confidence of struggling youth. He works tirelessly to steer them toward higher education and military service. Gomez also has a track record of quickly solving serious crimes. In 2013, his linguistic skills paired with a close working relationship with his community helped him track down the hit-and-run killer of a 15-year-old girl within a day of her death. A year later, Gomez took just four hours to clinch a confession in Spanish from a man who killed his own wife.