He participated in 13 major battles during World War II and worked for seven years in the Strategic Plans Directorate of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

As a lieutenant commander, La Rocque was the commanding officer of USS Solar, destroyed on April 30, 1946, in an explosion in loading torpex at Naval Ammunition Depot, Earle (now Naval Weapons Station, Earle), New Jersey.

La Rocque and his colleagues testified before the US Congress, frequently appeared in the media, and consulted many national and international political leaders.

In the 1980s, La Rocque founded a weekly public affairs television program, America's Defense Monitor.

He made an appearance playing himself as a news broadcast contributor in the 1984 made-for-TV drama Countdown to Looking Glass, a cautionary fictionalization of a potential escalation scenario towards worldwide nuclear war.