MARINE CORPS BASE HAWAII, KANEOHE BAY, Hawaii -- Sergeant Ivan Riano, assistant administration chief for Combat Service Support Group 3, has a story to tell. It's a story of a young man's determination to overcome poverty and flee a country where communism rules with an iron fist. A native of Santa Fe, Cuba, Riano lived right beside the ocean. He learned to sail at age 9 and attended a school away from home that taught sailing in the morning and then classroom instruction in the afternoon. Although caring parents supported the young Riano, he decided that a life of communism was not for him. One night in August of 1994, he set his heart and his sails to the United States along with his father and his uncle on a homemade boat designed from stolen boat parts. "At first, my dad told me I would die in the water," said Riano with a smooth Spanish accent. "Eventually, when he saw how determined I was, he decided he would go with me to the United States."Boarding the boat with his father and his uncle, Riano was the only one who knew how to sail. They set out on the 90-mile journey with 40 boiled eggs, a few loaves of bread and several cans of Spam. It was to be a tough trip that proved only be the beginning to a grueling journey. "I had to leave Cuba," said Riano. "I knew I had no future there. I wanted to be able to think for myself and be able to see the world. [But,] no one can legally leave Cuba."It was a long 24 hours in the boat until the trio saw the promising lights of the United States. Along the way, several ghastly sights were permanently burned into the young Riano's memory. Body parts of other Cubans were adrift in the water after they died trying to reach the land of opportunity. Others were seen on sinking rafts, desperate for help. "We could not help anyone we saw along the way because our raft was barely big enough for the three of us," recalled Riano with sorrow in his deep, brown eyes. "They were in the same situation we were. They just wanted a better life. "They called out for us, but we could not stop. We just had to leave them there and hope they would be alright."Within minutes of the coast of Florida, a Coast Guard vessel intercepted the homemade boat and Riano, his father and his uncle were taken into custody and placed on a Coast Guard vessel where they were detained. Once in custody, Coast Guard officials told Riano he was going to be taken to the United States, and he would be detained there. Even though he was going to be detained, Riano's only thought was that he would at least be in the U.S. After being transferred to several different Coast Guard cutters, Riano was taken along with his father and his uncle to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - though they thought they were in the United States. "When we got to GITMO, we had no clue where we were," said Riano. "They had us handcuffed, and they marked our hand with a number and gave us a personal hygiene bag. Everyone would fight for food, and it was a horrible place. "I did not care though. I was determined to go to the United States, and if I had to stay there for a while, I was going to do it."While detained at GITMO, the 17-year-old Riano saw several U.S. Marines who were conducting background checks on the detainees, as the Marines needed to weed out the troublemakers from the crowd while trying to keep families together. "The Marines seemed tough and they never smiled," said Riano with a warm smile on his light-brown face. Even though they were tough, they treated everyone fairly. And after a while, I was glad they were around."Since Riano was under the age of 18, the Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services allowed him and his father to enter the U.S. After being detained at GITMO for seven months, Riano and his father landed at Homestead Air Force Base in Florida on March 3, 1995."When I walked out of the airport, my aunt was waiting for my father and I," recalled Riano with an emotional tone to his voice. I could not believe what I was seeing. It was beautiful. "We went to a store on the way home. You could buy anything you wanted, and you did not have to show any kind of ration card to get it. People were laughing and smiling."Anxious to get on the road to success, Riano was immediately enrolled into school as a junior and worked part-time at McDonalds. At age 20, he graduated from high school."My high school was great; no one spoke English because most of the students were Cuban, and even the teachers spoke Spanish," Riano said. "I had a lot of my credits from school in Cuba transfer over, and I was able to graduate from the English Speakers of other Languages program, but my English was still horrible."Three months after receiving his diploma, Riano was at a recruiting station with his resident-alien card and was in front of a Spanish-speaking Marine recruiter. Riano felt that the United States had provided him everything he could ever dream of and wanted to pay his dues. The only way he thought he could do that as an immigrant was to join the military. Remembering the Marines from GITMO, Riano knew the Corps would be challenge. However, with broken English skills and a whole lot of determination, he was on his way to Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, S.C., to begin recruit training. "All I could say about boot camp was that it was scary," Riano said with a laugh. "I only knew a few words of English and those guys [drill instructors] were always yelling and acting crazy. "I just followed everyone else and did what they did, and when the drill instructor said something to me, I just yelled 'Yes, sir!'" It was not long until the drill instructors realized Riano appeared to be lost. He had to have commands repeated several times before he could understand. But this did not stop the determined recruit from graduating boot camp as the "Iron Man," after he earned a max score on the physical fitness test and was able to do more pull-ups and run faster than the other recruits in his company. "I couldn't believe I made it through boot camp," said Riano. "I was completely lost the whole way through, and I had to stay up many nights to study the Marine Corps history underneath my blanket with a flash light."Riano has since been promoted to the rank of sergeant and earned the rank of corporal meritoriously. He takes pride in being one of "the few and the proud." "I couldn't believe that as an immigrant and a noncitizen, I get treated the same as the others, and get the same benefits they do in the Marine Corps," explained Riano. "I love the Marine Corps, and it has been a great experience."While training with Marines from Combat Service Support Group 3 in April of 2001 at Marine Corps Training Area, Bellows, Riano was called out of the field and then sent to a ceremony to receive his citizenship.Afterward, he returned to the field with his fellow Marines. "I will defend this country and the Marine Corps because I am now a free man, and I have many opportunities to be someone," Riano said proudly. "If you work hard and have the motivation, you can do anything you want in life. No matter who you are or where you are from, you are treated equally in the Marine Corps. "I can now say I am something - a U.S. Marine."