Veteran Says Beloved Wife’s Cancer ‘Like Fighting a War At Home’

U.S. Marine and veterans nonprofit founder in Arizona struggles with wife’s cancer diagnosis and his own health challenges.

Shannon Francis-West (L), and husband Tom West stand outside the house of a friend where they're staying in Williams, Ariz., on Nov. 7, 2024. The couple run a veterans nonprofit called Operation: Transition Outside the Wire. Shannon has been diagnosed with lung cancer. Allan Stein/The Epoch Times

WILLIAMS, Ariz.—He could see it on the kitchen table in black and white, as plain as the Xerox paper on which it was printed. There was a dark spot on his wife’s lungs that was 2.25 inches in diameter and near her heart.

Tom West, 55, stood quietly and looked at the medical image. But he wasn’t the same person he was a week earlier.