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‘This is the last go around’
Maine veteran given six months to live makes final trip to redwood country  Dealing with throat cancer, Nye Whiting of Maine is visiting Del Norte County one last time. The Daily Triplicate/Nicholas Grube For Vietnam War veteran Nye Whiting, the redwoods, wild coastline and rock fishing are on his list of final things to see and do again before he dies. Whiting, along with his long-time friend and Korean War veteran Bruce Warring, is taking a last trip to places from his past that he loved. “This is the last go around,” Warring said, speaking for Whiting whose tracheotomy left him needing an electrolarynx to talk. “We’re hitting all the places that he used to live. We’ve been camping every night from Maine to California.” An electrolarynx is an electronic speech aid that allows people to talk after having their larynx removed, in Whiting’s case, for throat cancer.
Visiting places like the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, the two Maine
residents have been traveling and camping for more than three months.
Whiting, 64, is not a man to be taken lightly. He spent three tours in Vietnam in two services, but he doesn’t feel that any of it was special or deserving of attention. “All I done is what any true American would do,” Whiting said, his hand making a brushing motion as if to shoo flies. “My dad, my grandfather, they all served and that’s what I did. I served.” As a sniper, avid fisherman and someone who has had a list of jobs since the military as long as his arm, Whiting had only one thing to say about Del Norte County. “Can’t beat it,” Whiting said. “Most beautiful place to be, and the people have been very nice.” Whiting has been everything from a ranch hand and rodeo rider to radio D.J. But standing next to a smoking fire in the dappled shade of a redwood forest he looked at home, like a man who could be at home anywhere. “When I met him eight years ago the doctors said he had six months to live,” Warring said. “So we don’t know how much longer he has.” Judging by the steel in Whiting’s handshake, and the dangerous glint in his eye when anyone mentions shooting, it won’t be anytime soon. “I’m tired of fighting,” Whiting said, and then thought for a moment and amended. “I’m tired of fighting people, but I’m not that tired.” Both Whiting and Warring feel that their time in Del Norte has been the best experience of the trip. “These two men have shown us the best time we’ve had for the whole trip,” Warring said of Tony Hope and Dean Starkey, who manage Florence Keller Park North of Crescent City. “They’re going to take us deep sea fishing tomorrow.” At the mention of fishing Whiting’s face lit up and he produced a picture album with proof of his fisherman tales. He points at one picture, a five-pound brook trout, with pride. “This man has done it all,” Warring said. “I want to write his memoir.” Warring and Whiting met 8 years ago in the wilds of Maine. “We met through a mutual friend,” Warring said. “He needed a trailer and I had one that I had been living in. We’ve been friends ever since.” It is a friendship of shared values and shared love for the outdoors. Whiting, listening in with lively eyes, took a moment to stock the fire with small logs, before stepping in with his last comment of the interview. “We live off the land,” he grated out through the phlegm, each word that much more important for the effort speaking costs. “We don’t have e-mail or any of that.” And with those last words Whiting turned to the picnic table and began making camp coffee in a battered fire blackened pot. |
