Corporal Rockwell was a member of Company M, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He was taken Prisoner of War while fighting the enemy in South Korea on July 5, 1950, forced to march to North Korea on the "Tiger Death March", and died while a prisoner at Hanjang-ni, North Korea on November 22, 1950. His remains were not recovered. His name is inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial.