EDITOR’S NOTE: Hometown Heroes is a recurring feature in the Plant City Times & Observer in which we profile veterans from Plant City. If you have a loved one currently serving or who has served in the past, please contact Editor Michael Eng by email at meng@plantcityobserver.com or by phone at (813) 704-6850.
The ringing of a phone resonated throughout the humble kitchen of the Oquendos’ Plant City home. Nick Oquendo picked it up. His second-born son, Paul, was on the line. An active veteran in the U.S. Army, Paul lived on the other side of the United States, in California.
Nick was happy to talk with him.
But the phone call soon took a dark turn.
Paul told his father he is on the way to the hospital. He had a tumor on the back side of his knee.
“I’ve got cancer,” he told his father. “You can pray all you want to. This is set.”
His military training already had kicked in. Acceptance was protocol. Paul had covered himself in an armor of strength, ready to carve out an honorable solution.
“What can you say?” Nick says about that day. “He never smoked; he never drank; he never used drugs. Not just as a father, but as a person, you never want to seen anyone go through what he did.”
That was six years ago.
Now, all the Oquendos have left are pictures and documents. Nick shuffles through a letter on the table. It’s a final report of casualty from the U.S. Army.
“We are here for you,” it reads.
Paul died Sept. 1, 2012 — not from combat, not from a stray bullet, not from an IED, but rather a rare form of cancer. Although this is the first anniversary of his death, Paul’s family knows the diagnosis was just a tiny part of his life’s story.
AMERICAN DREAM
Paul was a first-generation United States native. Nick arrived Jan. 26, 1961, to Miami from Puerto Rico. By 7 p.m. the same day, Nick traveled to Tampa to work as a farmer. It was there he met his wife, Mercedes, whose father planted strawberries in Plant City.
Their three children, Nick Jr., Paul and Melissa, grew up in Plant City. Paul found his interest in athletics at Plant City High School. He also liked to preach at Whitehurst Baptist Church. But all the while, he was watching Nick Jr., who was eight years older than him.
Nick Jr. had enlisted in the U.S. Army, while Paul was still in school. Paul saw the military as an out. He wanted to create a better life for himself, building on what his parents had forged for him. He wanted to go to school.
“We are poor people,” Nick says. “If you want a good future, he had to decide. He went in to go to school.”
So, in 1991, after he graduated from high school, Paul enlisted in the Army. At first, he didn’t like it. He’d call home and ask his father’s advice. He also would call Nick Jr.
“As a big brother, he had gone though things,” Nick says. “Paul could trust him.”
After three years, Paul began to adapt to the military lifestyle. He decided to reenlist.
Paul worked with computer systems, before making a career change to become a recruiter. He also built a life with his wife, Dora, and their two daughters, Emily and Abigail. The family traveled the United States — from Georgia to Colorado and New York to Arizona. At one point, Paul also went to South Korea.
“As a soldier, a lot of people believed he was a great member of the Army,” Nick says. “He was there for the people. He wanted to help people become better.”
Paul found a niche as a recruiter. He communicated well with younger individuals looking to join.
“He told them, ‘If you want to spend the rest of your life with your mother and father, then that’s fine, but if you want to be a man, then join the Army,’” Nick says.
As a recruiter, Paul had to fight for aspiring service members against families, ideologies and stereotypes.
But in 2008, he began a very different fight.
DIAGNOSIS IN CAMO
Nick digs out two of Paul’s uniforms from a hall closet. The colors of green, tan and black look vibrant, almost brand new. An American flag patch sits gloriously on the right shoulder. Next to it, on the chest, is Paul’s last name.
Before he died, Paul gave those uniforms and a matching winter hat and jacket to his father.
Paul had worked in those uniforms, even after his diagnosis.
For a couple of years, Paul had complained of pain in his knee. He had two surgeries on top of his knee in Sacramento.
But it wasn’t until 2008 that doctors uncovered the source of his irritation. He had sarcoma cancer, a cancer found almost exclusively in children.
“When they found out he had cancer, they told him that would be it,” Nick says.
He underwent surgery to cut the cancer out of his leg. He also endured chemotherapy and radiation. His parents and siblings flew to California to be with him while he received treatments.
“At the beginning, he thought about giving up,” Nick said. “But, he believed if you don’t do everything you can, your family might say you didn’t try.”
Nick caught a glimpse at one of Paul’s medical bills. It totaled more than $100,000.
“The Army took care of everything,” Nick says.
In 2011, Paul’s leg was amputated.
He still pressed on.
For months, he had been trying to return home to Florida. In June 2012, he finally was stationed in Tampa and continued treatment at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute. In addition to treatment, he wanted to set his family up in a home near family. They finally moved into a house in Lithia.
Paul had only been in the house for four days before being sent to hospice in Ruskin. He said he wanted to die at home, so the family transported him back on a Saturday. Twelve hours later, Paul died.
“He was stronger than us,” Nick says, looking at a picture of his three children on the wall. “Even though Paul is gone, it’s like he’s still here. I learned so much from him. I think more than he did from me.”
Nick was never in the military. But the pride he feels for his sons swells in his heart every day.
“People in the military should be treated like high class, because they’ve earned it,” Nick says. “People in this country need to think about why we’re free. There’s blood of the soldiers everywhere.”
Contact Amber Jurgensen at ajurgensen@plantcityobserver.com.