When Jackie Martin heard the words “pirates captured” on the early-morning news Sept. 8 as she was getting ready for work, her heart sank. “I just froze and listened,” said the mother of 28-year-old Alexander Martin, a platoon commander from Camp Pendleton who has been on a pirate-hunting mission in the Gulf of Aden for 13 months. “Then I heard ‘USS Dubuque’ and my heart sank again, and I went cold until I heard there were no casualties.” Jackie was getting news that her son was the lead captain of a boat that came to the rescue of a pirate-seized ship in the treacherous high seas — a fiction-like story that’s put U.S. forces in the national spotlight for the past week. The story began when the German ship Magellan Star reported that it had been captured by Somali pirates about 85 miles off the Yemen coast. The USS Dubuque was ordered to the scene, and members of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Group scaled the ship by ladder, forcing the pirates’ surrender. Martin, who has served three tours in Iraq, was chosen to give a one-time press conference from overseas Sept. 9 and his account has been circulating in national headlines ever since. “As soon as the first stack of [Marines] made our way into the bridge, their hands were up, their weapons were down, they moved to their knees and they were compliant,” Martin told reporters. Not a single shot was fired in the capture, which La Jolla lawyer Zach Dostart said makes Martin’s story so legendary. Dostart, a close friend of Martin since the sixth grade, said the act of heroism didn’t come as a surprise. Even when the two played lacrosse and basketball together at La Jolla High School, Martin “struck fear in the hearts of the opposing teams.” “He’s a tough cookie and he loves doing what he’s doing,” said Dostart, who had lunch with Martin before he left for his voluntary tour of duty. “He’s the kind of guy who makes you happy to pay your taxes.” Martin is a platoon commander of the Force Reconnaissance Company, which conducts special operation missions. Although the “recon” team boarded the Magellan Star, Marine spokeswoman Jennie Haskamp said the operation involved numerous units, including a landing team, snipers and helicopter surveillance. It was the first such raid carried out by an international fleet of ships created last January to stop the pirate boardings and demands for ransom that have plagued the gulf’s sea lanes in recent years. Jackie said she and her family members, who all live within a mile of each other in La Jolla, have gotten to communicate through e-mail with Alexander since last week’s accomplishment and let him know how proud they are of him and his men. He responds in code, she said, and messages are brief. Jackie — whose other son, Jack, 23, is a Marine who just returned from Afghanistan — said she sticks close to the news as her only source for updates on Alexander’s mission, which is highly classified. “They’ve rarely been home for more than one week a month during this 13-month workup, which is hard on the families,” she said. “I try to stay busy, and I’m proud of what they do and I believe in what they do.”