The 36-year-old prior enlisted Marine captain, a 2017 Marine Corps Times Marine of the Year Honorable Mention, hung up the phone the first time a recruiter called his house.
Capt. Alexander Mora now works with the secretary of the Navy as a liaison to the White House on Navy and Marine Corps affairs.
Fellow Marines who nominated Mora for the award noted both his service in non-combat and combat missions during his career, as well as his work coaching and mentoring at-risk youth in sports programs wherever he's been stationed.
In high school, it was Mora’s close friend who wanted to join the Marines — Mora had no interest.
But after playing pickup basketball with another local recruiter and scoring well on a practice armed forces entrance test, Mora started to look around at his peers growing up near Boston, Mass.
Many were still stuck in town long after high school and didn't seem to have many options. The Marines looked like a good opportunity, he said.
So he enlisted and finished boot camp in 1999, serving in motor transport before finishing college and receiving a commission.
In the combat engineer field, he deployed in a humanitarian aid mission in the Philippines following the 2009 typhoon and again in 2011 following the earthquake in Japan.
He later served as the company commander and then company executive officer for a deployment to Afghanistan. During the second month of that tour, the unit lost a young corporal to an IED blast.
The corporal was from near Boston. Mora took it personally, making contact with the Marine's parents and later speaking at their son's memorial service. They continue to correspond on key dates such as Memorial Day, Veterans Day and the corporal's birthday.
Mora is nearing his 20-year mark and hoping to make major soon. When he eventually leaves the Marines, he hopes to work in public service.
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.
