NEW YORK -- On the CBS EVENING NEWS WITH KATIE COURIC on Thursday, Jan. 31 (5:30 p.m. on KIRO 7) Correspondent Byron Pitts reports the story of Sgt. Carmelo Rodriquez, a 29-year-old U.S. Marine who served in Iraq and whose misdiagnosis by military doctors led directly to his death, of stage 4 melanoma. On Nov. 16, 2007, as Pitts was waiting outside his room to interview him, Rodriguez died. His family urged the CBS News crew to stay and tell the soldier's story, which was his wish.

Rodriguez enlisted in the Marines in 1997. His initial medical check-up indicated that he had melanoma, but the doctors never told the soldier and no one in the military followed up on that report.

Eight years later, while Rodriguez was serving in Iraq, the heightened and very visible symptoms were checked by a military doctor and diagnosed as a wart. Rodriguez was instructed to have someone look at it when he got back to the U.S. five months later.

The CBS News investigation unearthed a military memo that called Sgt. Rodriguez' case "a major screw-up." That doesn't change a cold, hard fact for the families of soldiers who have died as a result of medical malpractice by the military: a 1950 Supreme Court ruling that bars "active duty" military personnel or their families from suing the federal government for injuries incidental to their service. According a veterans group that track soldiers who are misdiagnosed, there are hundreds of similar cases across the country.