CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- After Army duty, Dan Merrill set out on that unpredictable journey called the rest of his life. At one point, he didn't think life could get much better. He had a good job, a family, a nice house. "At the end of the ''80s, my wife and I were bringing in about $100,000 a year. I had it all."

After serving in the Marine Corps, Rex Stewart moved into police work, worked as an operator at DuPont, served on lots of boards and committees, ran four times for House of Delegates. "Life was wonderful," he said. "I was making good money. I had everything in the world going for me."

Now they know how it feels to be homeless.

At loose ends after four years in the Marines, William Morris worked odd jobs here and there. "Then I ran out of money, ran out of everything," he said. "I was young. I just thought nobody cared. I decided I would have to get it the best way I could get it."

So he got it by robbing. Four times, he got caught. All together, he spent 24 years behind bars.

"A big waste," he said softly.

The three veterans, bound by the common thread of homelessness, casualties of bad luck and bad behavior, are climbing back on track at the Veteran's Service Center, a program operated by Roark Sullivan Lifeway Center on Smith Street.

Since the doors opened in November 2008, hundreds of veterans from all walks of life have benefited from center services, said program coordinator Cindy Thompson. "Most of them didn't even know they were eligible for VA benefits," she said.

Roark-Sullivan oversees a 60-slot shelter for homeless men, a four-bed re-entry program for those discharged from prison, a permanent housing program for the mentally ill and services aimed specifically at homeless veterans, including a facility for transitional living that accommodates 12.

Veterans get help with substance abuse, clothing, health care, job placement, housing, "anything they need to get them back on their feet," Thompson said.

To promote the mission of the center and dispel the misconception of homeless men as hopeless, drunken derelicts without ambition, three veterans in various stages of transformation agreed to share their stories.

"Drastic things happen to people back-to-back," Merrill said. "Anybody can end up homeless. I am anybody."

"DuPont used to loan me out to promote United Way agencies," Stewart said. "I never thought I'd have to use any of them.

"Now when I tell people about myself, I say, 'This is what homeless looks like.' In this economy, we're all just a little ways from being homeless. It doesn't take much."

Merrill, 56, grew up in South Charleston. In 1971, he joined the Army. His stint included 14 months at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. After his discharge, he completed a series of apprenticeships, including training in electronics and instrumentation, and wound up with a decent job as a technician.

A divorce in 1994 revived problems with alcohol and drugs. He also battled depression. "She had an affair, and I couldn't handle it," he said. "Then I was paying child support. I had trouble with the IRS. I was overwhelmed with so many problems."

After the divorce, he moved to Jackson County and got a job at the aluminum plant. A second marriage in 1996 lasted six years.

Deteriorating health brought him to his knees. He has diabetes and struggles with a dire kidney condition. "Diabetes is eating up my kidney," he said simply.

A kidney transplant offers the only hope for a normal life. "That isn't going to happen," he said. "I'll be dead before the kidney comes."

An infection led to amputation of his toe. Health issues prevented him from bidding on lucrative shifts. "I was just worn out," he said.

In December 2008, he lost his job.

He lived with different friends, pillar to post. Bad luck followed him. He moved his furniture into a friend's apartment. The apartment burned down.

Eventually, it hit him. He really had no place to go. "I didn't want to burden my family. I knew I had to work on resolving my problems."

That epiphany brought him to the shelter where he has progressed into the transitional living phase. "This is not a hotel program," he said. "You are required to straighten out your life. I'm seeing a clinician now for my depression. I'm taking a budgeting course. Getting disability benefits and a place of my own, that's what we're shooting for now.

"A lot of people who come here can't see past their problem," he said. "The people here, they can see the solutions. Every single day, it's, 'What do you need? What can I do to help you?'"

One thing they cannot do for him is save his life. He accepts his fate matter-of-factly. "I'm going to die. I'm going on dialysis, but that is not going to cure my kidney. If this is what God has planned, that's fine. I've seen all the joys I'm going to see in this life.

"I'm working on making peace with God," he said. "I've got a lot of work there. I'm no angel. But I know I'm not a bad man."

Growing up in Hernshaw, Rex Stewart dreamed of becoming a U.S. senator, playing professional baseball and serving in the military. He enlisted in the Air Force straight out of high school and ended up in a specialized Marine Corps unit that took him in and out of Vietnam.

Overwhelmed by stress and mental problems he attributes to his military experience, he slipped into a vortex that nearly sucked the life out of him.

In 1995, he separated from his wife. "I lost my family and things started falling apart. I had to pull up the bootstraps to try to get back in the work force."

He found a part-time job with a courier service at Yeager Airport. In 2004, he had a heart attack that resulted in four bypasses. "Stress kills," he said.

Because he needed emergency surgery, the operation was performed at Charleston Memorial Hospital instead of a Veterans Administration facility. Medical bills mounted. He stayed for a while in the Veterans Hospital at Barboursville, then lived for about eight years on a Boone County farm. He cut grass for spending money, "just trying to survive," he said.

Finally, he reached the inevitable tipping point. Rock bottom. "I found myself standing in the middle of the street with my pockets empty."

He went first to the men's shelter just to have a place to sleep. He stayed a month, then graduated to the Veterans Service Center. He looks forward to his 59th birthday in April with high hopes for a new life.

He's working on a master's degree at West Virginia State. He's writing a book. Thanks to the center, he found an apartment in Dunbar, a car and a job. As a peer support specialist for the Mental Health Consumers Association, he searches for other down-and-out veterans, finds them sometimes sleeping under bridges and in alleys, and he helps them get a leg up.

"I'm giving back what was given to me," he said. "And I'm trying to better myself. I've got nowhere to go but up."

That's also the direction William Morris intends to go. The 54-year-old felon looks back on his mistakes with much remorse. "I can't change it," he said wistfully. "It sure would be nice if I could."

A Montgomery native, he lost his mother when he was 4, his father when he was 15. After that, nobody seemed to care what he did. He didn't much care himself. In 1973, he joined the Marine Corps. He served four years as a helicopter and jet mechanic, including duty in Okinawa.

"I wanted to be a police officer, wanted to do something that would help people," he said, "but when I got out of the military, I kept getting in trouble. I got my GED in Huttonsville.

"I was young. If I knew then what I know now, I would have stayed in the Marine Corps."

First, he got caught for unarmed robbery. Later, he went to Washington, D.C., where he had family and spent 42 months in a youth center there. The pattern was set. Jail and prison. "A few years here, a few years there," he said.

Any money he acquired went to alcohol and drugs. "I never had nothing, so money wasn't nothing," he said. "I never cherished anything. If I had it, OK. If I didn't, OK."

He went to prison in West Virginia in 2007. Released the following year, he got a contract job with the city, planting flowers and trees and cutting grass. When that job ran out, they transferred him to Spring Hill Cemetery. Three months later, that job also ran out. He worked at Shoney's as a dishwasher from January 2009 until November when he injured his hand.

"I couldn't keep putting my hand in water, and they couldn't hold the job for me until my hand got well, so I had to quit."

In August, somebody told him about the Veterans Service Center. "This is the best thing that ever happened to me," he said. "You can stay up to two years, until you have a job and some money saved, and they help you get your own place. We have chores to do, meetings to go to. They're helping me find a job.

"I had decided that no matter what happened, I wasn't going back to jail. No more drugs. No more robbing. I'm not hanging out with the same people. I'm through with all that. A decent job and a place of my own. That's what I'm looking for."

Reach Sandy Wells at san...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5173.