Army Spc. Francisco De la Serna has always been somewhat of a wild card, unpredictable even to his close-knit family. </p><p>But nothing prepared his relatives for the mention that President Barack Obama gave him at this week&rsquo;s memorial for the shooting victims at Fort Hood. </p><p>De la Serna, a 23-year-old medic from St. Marys, Kan., was recognized by Obama and his comrades as a hero for saving fellow soldiers&rsquo; lives last week in the aftermath of the shooting spree that left 13 people dead and more than two dozen others wounded. </p><p>After graduating from St. Mary&rsquo;s Academy in 2004 and enrolling briefly at Kansas State University, De la Serna left the town of 2,300 to hold jobs including a car salesman in Kansas City and an account manager at a Topeka financial firm. </p><p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s never been afraid of doing anything, that&rsquo;s for sure,&rdquo; said older brother Mauricio De la Serna. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s definitely very independent and has always done things on his own that we definitely wouldn&rsquo;t expect.&rdquo;</p><p>His three older siblings and parents were used to the surprises by the time De la Serna told them in 2007 that he wanted to become a medic in the Army. </p><p>For his actions after the Fort Hood shooting, his company commander, Capt. Brian Miles, nominated De la Serna for the Army&rsquo;s highest award given for non-combat heroism, the Soldier&rsquo;s Medal.</p><p> &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how many people would have died if he were not there,&rdquo; Miles said. &ldquo;But the death toll would have been a whole lot higher.&rdquo;</p><p> De la Serna didn&rsquo;t want to go into detail about what he saw or did at the site of shooting &mdash;a combination of modesty and a desire not to relive the horrors of the day. </p><p> Miles, who has heard De la Serna recount the events a number of times, offered this account of the medic&rsquo;s actions:</p><p> Last Thursday, De la Serna was fulfilling one of the mundane duties of a medic: handing out medical records at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center, part of a post-deployment health assessment of his battalion, which returned from Iraq at the beginning of June.</p><p> De la Serna had been sitting outside the processing center on a box of records when the sound of shots rang out from inside the building.</p><p> He quickly found cover behind trees about 200 feet away as bystanders scattered.</p><p> From the tree line, De la Serna saw wounded people pouring out of the processing center.</p><p> He then retrieved his medical bag, which he always keeps in his car, just in case &mdash; and headed toward the center.</p><p> &ldquo;He was out of harm&rsquo;s way,&rdquo; said Miles, 30. &ldquo;He was out of danger, and he went right back in there.&rdquo;</p><p> De la Serna admitted that he was scared. He told his brother that he thought his life was over.</p><p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to say I wasn&rsquo;t tempted to run, because I was,&rdquo; De la Serna said.</p><p> But something took over.</p><p> &ldquo;We&rsquo;re trained to react a certain way,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And, thankfully, I was able to react the right way.&rdquo;</p><p> Miles said the first person De la Serna treated had suffered a gunshot wound to the leg.</p><p> The bullet had gone through and was protruding from the back of the victim&rsquo;s leg.</p><p> De la Serna took the bullet out, dressed the leg and took the man to cover.</p><p> Then he went back.</p><p> About the same time, Sgt. Kimberly Munley, a civilian police officer at the post, arrived.</p><p>Army officials have said she and the gunman exchanged fire. The New York Times reported today, however, that another witness credited Senior Sgt. Mark Todd for bringing the gunman down.