Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Laguna Hills family loses Marine in Iraq
Sgt. Moses Rocha, 33, killed in action, was N.M. resident with local ties.
By JIM RADCLIFFE and RITA FREEMAN
The Orange County Register
With the precision of a U.S. Marine, Moses Rocha would get home, grab three Gatorades from a cabinet in the garage and toss them into the freezer. Two for him, one for dad.
When his father got home from his farm foreman job, the two would take the chilled drinks and head to a Mission Viejo park to kick around a soccer ball with friends.
It is a ritual Manuel Rocha will miss.
Moses Rocha, a 33-year-old sergeant based at Camp Pendleton for eight years, died Thursday in combat in Iraq, felled by a gunshot to the chest, military officials told the family.
Tuesday morning, his father and brother remembered the Marine as patriotic -- a man who, after joining the military, gained focus in life and appreciation for family.
Manny Rocha, 25, believed his brother's deployments -- once to Afghanistan, twice to Iraq -- kept him from taking his family for granted. Moses Rocha had a girlfriend. He talked about getting a house, raising a family.
"I'm sure being at war (he saw) `You know what, it can happen at any time,"' Manny Rocha said. "So when he'd go home he'd think, `Thank God I can hug my siblings, my parents."'
Rocha was born in Santa Ana and lived there until leaving for New Mexico at about age 8 to live with his mother. Summers were spent with his father, step-mother and siblings in their Laguna Hills home, a home that now has an American flag tacked above the garage and a "God Bless America" sign on the lawn.
The muscular sergeant didn't talk a lot about his duties, just telling family members that he would be all right.
When Manny and Moses got together at their dad's house, they playfully fought over the remote to the large-screen TV.
And the two took opposite sides in USC-Notre Dame and San Francisco 49ers-Oakland Raiders banter.
"When SportsCenter was on, we could never agree," his brother said, smil-ing.
Moses Rocha's mother, Velina Sanchez, said he always spoiled her, bringing her flowers for her birthday or Mother's Day, kissing her on the forehead.
"I always got something from him," Sanchez said.
Moses Rocha will be buried Saturday at South Park Cemetery in Roswell, N.M., near where his mother lives. Friends and family members from around the country are expected to fly in, including Rocha's 15-year-old daughter Miranda, who lives with her mother in Texas.
New Mexico was chosen because Moses Rocha considered Roswell his hometown.
That's a comfort to his younger brother Rommel Rocha, who lives four hours north in Albuquerque.
When the time comes, he wants to be buried next to his brother.
"I don't want him to be alone," he said.
