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Allison Batdorff ©Stars and StripesYokosuka Naval Base, Japan, December, 2005: Navy Corpsman Gilbert Rocha gets a hero's welcome as he returns to Nile C. Kinnick High School, where he was commanding officer of the Navy JROTC program before his graduation with the Class of 2003. Rocha received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart after an incident in Iraq six months earlier when two suicide car bombers attacked a checkpoint manned by Rocha and two Marines. All three were wounded, but Rocha treated the two Marines and made sure they were medically evacuated before tending to his own thigh, ankle and neck wounds.

RELATED MATERIAL: Stars and Stripes' 2005 story about the homecoming at Kinnick.