Cop enables Marine's dying wish

[thedrifter]

Cop enables Marine's dying wish

By ROCHELLE E.B. GILKEN

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Thursday, June 14, 2007

WEST PALM BEACH — It was a small favor, $121 for a bus ticket.

Yet it was enough for James Willis to do something he didn't think he could: He will die with dignity.

Willis is a Vietnam veteran with cancer in his blood and bones who says he has been homeless in Palm Beach County for 20 years.

He lived with ants and rodents, begged for spare change and spent it on as much Natural Ice as he could get.

Chemotherapy, twice a week for the last three months, caused too many flashbacks, and he doesn't want to go back to the Veterans Affairs hospital. Doctors gave the 55-year-old less than 60 days.

"I ain't taking no more," Willis said, bawling at the bus stop, sores visible on his arms below his cross and eagle tattoos. "I don't want to die in the woods, and I don't got that long left to live, and I'm going home."

He wants to spend his last days with his only remaining family, a half brother named Ronnie in his hometown of Greensboro, N.C.

On Wednesday, he boarded the 1:35 p.m. Greyhound bus that will, after a few transfers, drop him off about noon today.

His savior: Palm Beach County sheriff's Cpl. Karl Martin, who first met Willis when he arrested him a year ago for drinking in public. It wasn't Willis' first arrest - he's had 25 in Florida - but it was his last.

Since then, Martin checked on the fellow Marine every other day. Willis confided that he was dying and wanted to see his brother again.

Martin called the Marine Corps League. The organization confirmed Willis' story of duty and illness, called his brother and bought the ticket. It also threw in $40 cash for food and drinks.

"There's no reason for any veteran in this country to be living in the woods somewhere," said Robert McKenna, past commandant of the Marine Corps League. "No veteran should die and end up in a pauper's grave."

He said the league in Greensboro will stay in touch with Willis and make sure he receives a proper veteran's burial.

"At least we're allowing him to die in peace with pride and dignity."

Willis has few plans for the rest of his life. He will have a long conversation with his brother. He will cry. Sleep in a bed. Eat Southern cooking. Watch television. And enjoy the comfort of life, back where he started.

He doesn't say how he ended up in Palm Beach County. After the Marines he worked as a landscaper, he said. He lost his job and his wife in 1987 and has been on the streets ever since, he said.

He lived in the woods at Gun Club Road and Military Trail in suburban West Palm Beach, his home just out of sight of the road where he often asked drivers for money. Sometimes they gave him money, beer or cigarettes. Sometimes they threw trash

He slept in a blue tent weighted down by a tire rim, set up next to a palm tree with an American flag stuck in the trunk. He had a table with a couple of jugs, dog bowls and shaving cream.

On Wednesday morning, he said goodbye to his girlfriend and his homeless pals, the Tortorici brothers. The Tortoricis are his best friends, and they were happy to see him move on. They even bought him a ticket to North Carolina about two years ago.

But back then, Willis wouldn't go. He couldn't explain why.

"We tried to get him to go before. I want to see him go home," said Patrick Tortorici, 42. "He was crying last night about leaving us."

Finally, Willis is heading out. He leaned on his cane at the bus stop, carrying his cooler and dragging a suitcase full of recently donated clothes.

"I don't care who gets the tent," he said. "Whoever finds it can have it."

"I'll be at my brother's house."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Homeless man suffering cancer gets ticket from Palm Beach deputy to return to family

By Dianna Cahn
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted June 14 2007
Of all the homeless men he runs into every day, Palm Beach County Sheriff's Deputy Karl Martin said Jim Willis is the one who accepted his help.

Willis lived in a tent in the woods. He scrounged for food, and said he even ate ants and cockroaches.

Anything to forget what he did to survive in Vietnam.

But when Martin worked with the Marine Corps League, a support group, to buy Willis a $121 bus ticket to North Carolina, where he will be reunited with the one person in the world he calls family, Willis accepted.

Willis has bone cancer and is going home to die.

"The guy served his country. It's an honorable thing," Martin said Wednesday. The deputy, like Willis, was a Marine, in the first Iraq war. "I wanted to do something for him."

Willis, 59, spent four years in the Marines from 1968 to 1972, serving in Vietnam. It's something he doesn't like to talk about. It gives him flashbacks, he said.

Born in Greensboro, N.C., Willis said he was "well-born" and "well-raised." So when life gave him trouble after Vietnam, he said pride kept him from turning to family for help.

For the better part of two decades, Willis lived on the streets and in the woods. He picked up cans, did odd jobs and held up a sign alongside traffic on Military Trail asking for money. He also drank and cut off contact with those who loved him.

"I didn't want my family to know I was down and out," he said. "It's been hard. I had to eat out of Dumpsters in order to survive; eat old potatoes, cucumbers … I've even eaten ants, ate cockroaches to try to survive."

About a year ago, Martin arrested Willis on a beverage violation. The two developed a relationship and Martin would check in on Willis at his campsite in the woods off Gun Club Road and Military Trail.

Then Willis fell ill with cancer. He sought treatment at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Riviera Beach and over the past three months has been receiving chemotherapy, he said.

But it made him sick, and he'd had enough. When Martin said, "I am going to be the guy to find you dead in the woods," and asked him for family contacts, Willis agreed to call his brother in North Carolina.

Martin and Robert McKenna of the Marine Corps League were present when Willis called his brother. McKenna said he heard the conversation and confirmed with the VA that Willis was in chemotherapy.

And he and fellow Marines had conversations with Willis, confirming he was, indeed, a Marine, McKenna said.

"You feel horrible that you didn't meet the guy sooner," McKenna said. "But at least we are allowing him to die with dignity instead of unknown, in the woods."

Willis ended his chemotherapy on Monday. His doctors give him 30-60 days.

On Wednesday, freshly scrubbed and wearing fresh clothes given to him by Martin and the league, Willis waited at the Greyhound bus terminal.

"Trust in God, he'll pull you through whatever," said Willis, emotional as he thanked Martin, and thanked God for sending Martin to him.

"What time you have left," Martin told him, "I hope you enjoy it. Spend the rest of your days with family, instead of in the woods."

Dianna Cahn can be reached at dcahn@sun-sentinel.com or 561-228-5501.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Dying vet's trip home has a sad conclusion

Bone cancer victim's brother dies before reunion.

By Dianna Cahn
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted June 15 2007

Jim Willis boarded a bus from West Palm Beach on Wednesday, bearing not just the bus ticket given to him as a gift of kindness but also the hope that in his final days, the homeless war veteran could be with family.

But he was too late.

Willis, who is dying of bone cancer, was traveling to Greensboro, N.C., to reunite with his brother, Ronnie, for the first time in 20 years.

Only Ronnie never showed up at the Greensboro bus station Thursday, said Robert McKenna of the Marine Corps League, which with Palm Beach County Sheriff's Deputy Karl Martin bought Willis a ticket home.

Ronnie, he said, died this week.

"It's a little sad of an ending to the story," McKenna said, citing information from a reporter in Greensboro.

"Everyone was excited. But Ronnie wasn't at the bus station," McKenna said. "It turned out that he died a day and a half ago."

Martin said he got the call from a reporter in Greensboro, who said Willis was informed of his brother's death when he tried to call Ronnie from the bus station.

"I was floored," said Martin, adding that he was still trying to verify the information.

Martin met Willis a year ago when he arrested the homeless veteran on a drinking violation and befriended him. Both men were former Marines.

Martin served in the first Gulf war, Willis in Vietnam.

When Martin learned that Willis was dying, he persuaded Willis to call his estranged brother and go home to die. He then arranged with the Marine Corps League to buy Willis a $121 bus ticket to Greensboro and a change of clothes.

An emotional Willis was excited Wednesday to go see his brother. But he ended up alone, far from anyone he knows, McKenna said.

McKenna said the Marine Corps League in North Carolina found Willis a shelter, but he did not expect it would be a long-term solution.

"He's not going to stay in a facility, because alcohol is his self-medication for pain," McKenna said, adding that the reporter said Willis wanted to come back to Florida.

"He wants to come down here because at least he has friends down here," McKenna said.

Dianna Cahn can be reached at dcahn@sun-sentinel.com or 561-228-5501.

Ellie