Marine Lance Cpl. Hugo R. Lopez, 20, La Habra; Dies of Injuries in Blast

When friends asked Hugo R. Lopez why he was going to Iraq, he had a ready reply. “So you don’t have to,” he would tell them without missing a beat.

It was the same go-for-it attitude they had seen him display countless Friday nights on the football field as a defensive linebacker for La Habra High School’s 2003 CIF championship team. It also was the attitude that made him a hometown hero.

On Feb. 4, the body of the Marine lance corporal, who died Jan. 27 of injuries suffered in a roadside bombing in Iraq, came home to a welcome befitting a hero.

Lopez, 20, was La Habra’s first war casualty since Vietnam. Flags in the city were at half-staff. An estimated 1,000 relatives, friends and admirers showed up for the four-hour viewing. And at his funeral, the high school football champion-turned-soldier was saluted by mourners ranging from spit-and-polish Marines in dress blue to longhaired bikers wearing leather and scarves.

“The loss of Hugo has been devastating to the entire community,” Councilman James Gomez said of the young man he had admired from the bleachers.

A roadside bomb exploded near Lopez on Nov. 20 during combat operations in Rawah, near the Syrian border. He died at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton. As part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, his unit was attached to the 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward).

“He was a hometown hero,” Gomez said, “and we’re very sorry to lose one of our own.”

Even as a young boy, Lopez dreamed of becoming a soldier. Born Sept. 13, 1985, in the Mexican town of Nayarit, Lopez immigrated to the United States with his family at age 3, and, almost from the time he could speak, talked about joining the Marines.

“All the time he told us, ‘When I’m bigger I’ll go to the Marines,’ ” said his stepfather, Fidencio Tinoco. “Many times we spoke to him to change his mind, but we couldn’t.”

In high school, Lopez joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps, mentored classmates and played varsity football. “He was the nicest guy you could ever know,” said former teammate Brad Higgins, 19. “He was the kind of guy who was cool to everybody and had friends everywhere.”

Another 19-year-old former teammate, Ben Cano, also was Lopez’s childhood friend. “He was the first person who showed me the meaning of true friendship,” Cano said. “He was a strong guy, always looking out for his friends. When someone knocked him over on the football field, he’d get up and ask, ‘Are you all right?’ ”

Lopez was proud of his Mexican American heritage, Cano said, and loved eating Mexican food, especially his mother’s tamales. “He was laughing all the time,” Cano said. “He wanted to make his family proud.”

They were indeed proud when, shortly after graduating in 2004 and following a two-week trip to Mexico, Lopez enlisted in the Marine Corps and was based at Camp Pendleton. By then, friends say, he weighed a few extra pounds and had to diet and exercise for a month to slim down. He did it with the same determination he had exhibited in every aspect of his life.

In October 2004, Lopez entered boot camp and, after a stint in San Diego, departed for Iraq on his 20th birthday last year. “He called us every two or three days,” his stepfather said. “He always said, ‘Don’t worry for me. I’m happy here.’ ”

On Nov. 20, slightly more than two months after arriving in Iraq, Lopez was riding in a Humvee when the makeshift explosive went off. With extensive burns, he was flown to Brooke Army Medical Center, where he spent nine weeks struggling valiantly against the odds.

“They gave him two days to live, but he defied them every day,” said Cano, who was among those visiting Lopez at the hospital. Some of those trips were paid for by community fundraisers back home.

“We all kept praying for a miracle,” Gomez said, “but unfortunately it wasn’t to be.”

Said Higgins: “I just wish all of us could believe in something as strongly as he did. A lot of people say they’d die for their country -- he actually did.”

In addition to his stepfather, Lopez is survived by his mother, Maria G. Tinoco; a brother, Oscar, 12; and a sister, Valeria, 6.