By C.J. Chivers, Staff Reporter
WASHINGTON -- The streets surrounding the Marine Barracks here mark a neighborhood strained by decay. Wind moans through fire-scarred buildings. Graffiti creeps like ivy.
But for marines, this 194-year-old brick landmark is a storied place. Here lies the ceremonial heart of the Corps, the home of its top officer, and a tourist attraction where evening parades serenade visitors during the capital's sweltering summers. An assignment to these barracks is considered an honor.
Now one former Bronx resident is among those privileged. Marine Sgt. Angel Rivera Jr., 29, serves on what marines call Presidential Support Duty -- and plays a prominent role in the barracks' snap-and-polish routine.
"He's a great asset to our detachment," said 1st Sgt. M.O. White, 35, of Alexandria, La. "Sgt. Rivera is a stellar individual. He's mature and level-headed, and he carries himself very well."
Rivera splits time between shifts supervising the barracks' sophisticated security system and training troops to guard Camp David, the presidential retreat nestled in Maryland's rolling hills.
Sometimes he works with the Secret Service. On Friday, he watched over Bethesda Naval Hospital during President Bill Clinton's routine physical. He says the Bronx helped cultivate the wary eye that security duty requires.
"Being on the street I learned about people," Rivera said. "I learned how to spot the hustles. Now I try to teach younger marines how to look out for them, too."
In 1985, when Rivera pushed off from the Eden Wald housing projects at 1165 East 229th St., he says there were few jobs in the borough.
"My cousin had a career in the Marines," he said. "After seeing him, I decided to make the move. There was nothing going on in the Bronx."
Now when he returns home, housing police in Eden Wald ask for him. Neighbors stop by his mother's apartment. He's the local kid made good, said his brother, Kenny Rivera, 31.
"When he signed up, I was nervous -- our family was always together," his brother said. "Now we are telling him to stay in there as a career, we tell him to go all the way to the top. I see his friends, and they're not doing as well as Angel."
Rivera attended Harry S. Truman High School in Co-op City. Sometimes he crosses paths with his former classmates.
"My friends from high school are still on the street," he said. "One time I went home and I saw one of the guys and he said, `Hey, I thought you were dead, or in jail.' I told him I was in the Marines and he was shocked."
Rivera's latest graduation was from a mid-career leadership course at the corps' education base in Quantico, Va. White said he has a solid record, and will be eligible for promotion. If all goes well he can retire from the corps at age 40, and enjoy a pension for life.
The common notion that the corps is shrinking -- and trimming personnel, is wrong, officials say, adding that recruiting is up and jobs look secure.
"Downsizing has happened, but it's behind us," said Capt. Michael S. Martin, of the Marine recruiting headquarters in Garden City, L.I.
"The Marine Corps is not going to get any smaller."
Local enlistment patterns support Martin's statement. Four years ago the corps sent 122 recruits from the Bronx to its boot camp at Parris Island, S.C. But by 1993 the number had dipped to 83. This year it's back up -- to 106, where Martin says it will stabilize.
Today, Rivera's salary allows him and his wife, Mercedes, to afford rent in a Maryland townhouse and own a car. Sergeants with Rivera's experience earn approximately $30,000 a year, plus full medical benefits, Martin said.
But it's not always an easy trip. After boot camp, the corps assigned Rivera to an infantry battalion in California. Its travels took him to Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
With these travels came tense moments.
In 1988 his amphibious force was poised off the coast of Burma, ready to evacuate the U.S. embassy. In 1990 he joined an armored vehicle unit -- and headed for the Persian Gulf.
"During the plane ride over everybody was rowdy," Rivera said. "But as we landed, the plane went silent. I was nervous and didn't know what to expect."
It was tough on his family as well.
"When they started the war, I was suffering," said his mother, Constancia Gonzalez. "I hated to think of him over there."
When the war broke out, Rivera's outfit, the 1st Light Armored Infantry Batallion, clashed with Iraqi tanks.
"They came over the berm and everything went haywire," he said. "We got into firefights. It was kind of shocking."
Tank barrels spat shells through the darkness. In the confusion, an American missile smashed a nearby marine vehicle. A friend -- Ismael Cotto, also of the South Bronx -- was killed.
"The day before I had said, `I'll see you later,' to him," he said."But I meant I'd see him after the war, when we got back to the rear."
Four years after the war, his superiors said he still gravitates toward tough assignments.
"In January I wanted to move him into the office," White said. "It would have been a comfortable job. But he requested not to come up here. He wants to stay involved with the younger marines, he's up-front and hands-on."
He also has been decorated -- not for combat, but for saving a civilian's life. In the spring of 1990, he rescued a woman after a freeway accident in southern California. Motorists passed by the mangled wreck. Rivera stopped.
"She was kind of nasty looking. I never saw so much blood in my life," he said. "And they had gas leaking; the firemen said it could have exploded any minute."
Rivera pulled the woman free. She had a fractured skull and a deep head cut. He removed his shirt, forced it against the wound to staunch the bleeding, called 911 on a cellular phone and comforted her in Spanish until the ambulance arrived.
Actions like this earned Rivera more than his Navy Achievement Medal. They earned him respect.
"He's a pretty damn good marine," said Gunnery Sgt. Chandler Coleman, 33, of Philadelphia. "He's the type of marine you'd want to go to combat with -- he gets the job done, but cares about people too."
So far, his tour in Washington has not been so dramatic.
His most harrowing moment occurred when a pedestrian tossed a parcel over the compound's wall. Rivera spotted it on camera and sounded the alarm. Armed marines swarmed on the man -- as in a bomb drill. The parcel was a pornographic magazine in a brown paper bag.
Although Rivera works in a neighborhood bedeviled by crime, his fellow marines shake their head at the Bronx.
"The Bronx? That's a rough area," said White. "I'm told you can't walk the streets after 6 p.m."
Rivera disagrees.
"D.C. is worse than the Bronx," he said. Outside the barracks lies a landscape of abandoned buildings, drifting trash and crime. "I've never seen a city go so broke. Where I grew up is better than this."