David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times

If he had known in 2005 what he knows today, Brig. Gen. Gary Brito would have nominated Sgt. 1C Alwyn Cashe for the Medal of Honor.

Brito knew in 2005 that Cashe, his uniform soaked with fuel, plunged into a burning vehicle in Iraq on Oct. 17, 2005, to rescue soldiers who were on fire. But only months later did Brito, Cashe's battalion commander, learn the details of Cashe's courage that day outside Samarra.

Cashe rescued six badly burned soldiers while under enemy small-arms fire. His own uniform caught fire, engulfing him in flames. Even with second- and-third degree burns over 75% of his body, Cashe continued to pull soldiers out of a vehicle set ablaze when a roadside bomb ruptured a fuel tank.

Before all those details emerged, Cashe was awarded a Silver Star, the military's third-highest award for valor, after Brito nominated him. But soon after learning more about Cashe's actions, Brito mounted an unusual Medal of Honor campaign that has continued for more than seven years.

If the latest batch of sworn statements submitted to the Army by Brito is successful, Cashe will be the first African American among 16 service members awarded the nation's highest medal for valor for actions in Iraq or Afghanistan. Cashe, 35, died of his burns three weeks after the bomb attack. Seven of the 16 medals were awarded posthumously.

"You don't often find truly selfless sacrifice where someone put his soldiers' welfare before his own," Brito said. "Sgt. Cashe was horribly wounded and continued to fight to save his men."

"The true impact of what he did that evening was not immediately known because of the chaos of the moment," Maj. Gen. Joseph Taluto, one of Cashe's commanders, wrote to the Army in support of Cashe's Medal of Honor nomination.

"Sgt. Cashe saved my life," Mills said. "With all the ammo inside that vehicle, and all those flames, we'd have all been dead in another minute or two."

Cashe's sister, Kasinal Cashe White, spent three weeks at her brother's bedside at a military hospital in Texas as doctors treated his extensive burns. She knew nothing of his actions until a nurse asked her, "You know your brother's a hero, don't you?"

When Cashe was able to speak, White said, his first words were: "How are my boys?" — his soldiers, she said. Then he began weeping, she said. He told her: "I couldn't get to them fast enough."

Cashe died Nov. 8, 2005.