By Monique Roth
L’Observateur

LAPLACE — When John Sullivan went to pick up his motorcycle from getting painted at Jim’ s Body Shop in LaPlace, he received a huge surprise — his nearly $800 bill had been wiped clean.

The reason? Sullivan is a U.S. Navy veteran.

“The opportunity to do it came up … to bless someone who laid it on the line for us,” Michael Watson, owner of Jim’s Body Shop, said, adding “the love of our vets and what they do for our country” inspired him and his team to go above and beyond for Sullivan.

Originally from Mississippi, Sullivan served in the Navy for eight years, where he saw Vietnam action. He said he’s worked as a construction worker — the job that brought him to Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina — and spent nine years working in law enforcement with the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office.

“They’ve got a lot of down-to-Earth people here,” Sullivan said of LaPlace, where he now lives.

Sullivan said the Sheriff’s Office would bring some of their cars to get worked on at Jim’s Body Shop, and that’s how he initially met Watson.

Sullivan said after his bike got broken into during the summer, he brought new motorcycle saddlebags to Jim’s Body Shop to get painted.

After paying a deposit and returning a week later to pick up his bike, Sullivan said he was walking in a daze and had tears in his eyes when he was handed a bill that read, “No payment due — for services given as a U.S. veteran.”

Watson said the idea to bless Sullivan first started with Marc Boudreaux, a painter at the shop, who said he would donate his time and asked Watson if Sullivan could only be charged for materials so he could receive the best paint job possible.

Watson said he liked Boudreaux’s idea, and decided to take it a step further. Watson said Jim’s Body Shop always gives a 10-percent discount to veterans, but he was inspired to go above and beyond for Sullivan, who is heavily involved in work with the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association.

“He does so much for other people,” Watson said of Sullivan. “It inspired me to bless him.”

Sullivan said the Combat Vets are “vets helping vets,” and the association recently raised $5,800 for the Southeast Louisiana War Veterans Home in Reserve.

With his returned deposit and bill waived, Sullivan laughed when he said he definitely believes in the Biblical principle of reaping what you sow.

“There’s not much humanity left,” Sullivan said. “You got to help your brother — that’s what the Bible says.”