Here is a story about Rocky's Viet Nam experience and after, from the book Out of Bounds.

First came the attack in the humid night when the North Vietnamese bullet ripped through Robert "Rocky" Bleier's left leg. Then, moments later, a grenade bounced toward him and detonated, shooting its wicked shards of metal into his legs and feet, inflicting wounds that ended his tour of duty in Vietnam.

Bleier had been a three year letter man at halfback for Notre Dame and captain of the 1967 squad. When his draft notice came in the mail he was in training camp with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the summer of 1968. A few months later he was hauling a grenade launcher through a jungle thousands of miles from pro football. After his wounds he was even farther from the game. A comeback, almost everyone advised him, was an unreachable goal.

But something other than the deeply embedded shrapnel remained with Rocky Bleier, as one of his former teammates observed: "I was a freshman when he was a senior. He was the guy I really looked up to, tried to pattern myself after. To me, he was the ideal team captain. Here he was back for a pep rally in 1969, thirty pounds under his playing weight, walking with a bad limp -he didn't even look like the guy I remembered. But when he spoke he had that same spirit, that same fire in him. Listening to him speak at that rally was the most moving experience I had at Notre Dame."

Quite simply, the man refused to quit on himself. He hobbled back into the Steeler's training camp in 1970, and after two arduous years of fighting his way through waivers, injury lists, and taxi squads, Rocky was back. His gritty play characterized the style of a Steeler team that won its first championship in forty years. By 1975 he was a Super Bowl Champion.