VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Much like what happened to American troops in the Vietnam War, an enemy 72-year old former Marine John Crockett could not see late Wednesday night set in motion potentially deadly consequences.

The King’s Forest home Crockett’s parents bought in 1972 sustained extensive damage when a front came knocking with wind gusts up to 31 mph. The brief storm toppled a 20,000-pound white oak tree that was estimated to be 75-years-old.

Regina Mobley: Tell me what you remember from Wednesday night around 11.

John Crockett: A bomb going off, as if I’m going to Vietnam. That’s what it sounds like.

When the massive white oak came crashing down, slicing away the two-car garage, Pamela Spivey, who lives three doors away, felt the impact.

“We were upstairs and we felt it; It shook the whole house,” Spivey said. “When I drove my dad to the doctor’s yesterday, I drove past it and I saw the tree right through the middle of the house, all the way down to the foundation. I was like, oh, my gosh, that’s Mr. Crockett’s house, but he’s fine. I saw him.”

The enemy this Vietnam veteran could not see was root rot in the tree that lined his driveway.

“I couldn’t believe it, because that tree was so straight, and I just back in February of last year, took about six trees down in the backyard,” Crockett said. “Had I known that was a bad tree, that tree would have come out too.”

Residents in the area say in the past five years, trees have fallen on five homes on West Coral Key.

A crew from Phillips Family Tree Care used a heavy industrial crane to gingerly remove the 80-foot tree after chainsaws were used to cut the trunk into several sections. Brendon Phillips, a certified arborist, owns the local company.

Regina Mobley: What should homeowners do if they have a suspicious tree in their yard?

Brendon Phillips: So you can go to treesaregood.org and find an ISO-certified arborist and they can come out and inspect a tree. That’s probably the best thing to do. There’s a ton of literature on that on that website as well that can tell you the problems that you might be seeing in a tree. But it’s really best just to get an arborist out, preferably a tree risk assessor too, and they can tell you what’s going on with it.

Crockett is now homeless. The veteran told 10 On Your Side he is prepared to pack his belongings and move into a hotel while insurance adjusters decide whether to repair or replace his home.