Veteran with terminal cancer gets Christmas wish -- to make a snow angel in Florida

A Vietnam veteran who was given a grim diagnosis and told this would be his last Christmas, celebrated by getting his holiday wish - to make a snow angel, in Florida. (jarmoluk/Pixabay)

A Vietnam veteran who was given a grim diagnosis and told this would be his last Christmas, celebrated by getting his holiday wish - to make a snow angel, in Florida. (jarmoluk/Pixabay)

A Vietnam veteran who was given a grim medical diagnosis and was told this would be his last Christmas celebrated by getting his holiday wish -- to make a snow angel in Florida.

"When I laid down in that snow, it felt really good," Albert Septien, who was diagnosed with stage four melanoma earlier this year, told WTVT.

Septien believes his cancer was caused from exposure to Agent Orange while he recovered bodies during the Tet Offensive in 1968, WTVT reported.

Doctors told him in November that the cancer had grown and this would likely be his last Christmas.

"I asked him, What would you like for Christmas?'" Septien's cousin Joe Maestre, told WTVT. "And he says, 'I want to make a snow angel.' I said, 'Well, you got it, you got it.' And he laughed! He said to me, 'In Tampa? You're crazy.'"

But on Christmas morning, Septien, 76, walked outside his Tampa home and laid in snow, WFLA reported. A crew spent the morning creating eight tons of snow from bags of ice, WTVT reported.

"I don't think there's words to explain it," Maestre told WTVT. "The look on his face, the feeling in his heart. The tears that he had. This has been the most wonderful day in the last year."

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