Purple Heart Award Winner Enrolls at Boise State

Rodney White, a Naval reservist and now a Boise State University student, was serving as a hospital corpsman in Afghanistan last year. While at Combat Outpost Terra Nova near Jelewar on August 10, a mortar round shook the walls. White rushed outside and began treating the injured. Nine more shells rocked the base, injuring eight.

White himself was hit in the leg by shrapnel while he worked to stabilize his fallen comrades. But White continued to assist the injured, saving six soldiers that day. In recognition of his bravery in the face of danger, White received the Purple Heart at Gowen Field in August.

“Being a medical person, you gotta put the other guys ahead of you,” he said. “I knew my injury was minor. I couldn’t bend my leg very well and I saw the shrapnel in me, but I had to make sure the other guys were OK.”

For nine hours he cared for Americans, Canadians, Afghans and others before he was able to turn attention to himself. He cleaned and wrapped his wound, but the hurt didn’t go away.

“I kept having pain — zingers that shoot down my leg,” he said. He at first refused to go home and was assigned to and fulfilled another mission where he also was shot at, this time for five days straight.

Afterwards, White's supervisor told him he was done with dangerous missions. White is still in the reserves, but he enrolled in classes over the summer and hopes to be accepted into Boise State's School of Nursing.

White enlisted in the Navy out of high school, then went back in after the Sept. 11 attacks. He has been deployed three times: twice to Iraq and once to Afghanistan. During his final deployment, White heard good things about Boise State’s nursing program from friends from the Boise area and decided to give it a shot.
“I wanted to go to a school where people would later look at my application and say, ‘You went to that school? It has a good reputation.’” He applied while still in Afghanistan and now juggles school, reserve duties and being a dad to his three children.

So far, his experience has been positive. “I love it here. It reminds me a lot of home (Montana) and everyone I have met on campus — including staff — has been really easy to talk to.

“After I earn my degree, I want to put in for a commission as a Navy Nurse Corps officer,” he said. “I do love the military and I want to experience it for the rest of my life, but I’d like to retire as a nurse and a commander.”