Cano draws on his own experience in helping other veterans

By Doug Spoon, Editor

Michael Cano paused in front of one section of the Wall That Heals and got very quiet. He brushed a finger across the lettering of a name he recognized – one of 15 fellow Marines from his squadron that were killed in Vietnam in the spring of 1969.

Guided to the right spot by a volunteer with indexing of the names, Cano soon found another familiar name.

“I look at their names and I see their faces,” he said with tears in his eyes.

It has been more than 50 years, but Cano hasn’t forgotten. He admits there were times when he wanted to – when he swore he would never again think about a war for which so many Americans held him and others up to ridicule. But the longtime resident of Menifee and owner of a dry cleaning business here eventually reactivated in a brotherhood he claims is like no other. Today, he is Commander of local VFW Post 1956, and he was instrumental in helping to bring the traveling Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall to Menifee.

As he strolled past the panels bearing the names of 58,000 fallen soldiers, Cano recalled things he hadn’t spoken of much in many years. Guests came up and thanked him for his service. And as a ceremony held to finally give Vietnam Veterans a proper welcome home finished up, he smiled.

“I told Stephanie, ‘You don’t need to get help for this, I’ll do it the best I can,’” he said in reference to Stephanie Ornelas, who provided an open but weed-filled field at the back of Miller-Jones Memorial Park for placement of the wall.

“We cleaned it all out. I got the NJROTC cadets from Paloma Valley , and cadets from Santa Rosa Academy, and we cleared this whole field. Yesterday at 7:30 I was still cutting along the fence, cleaning it up. And every time I looked up, I looked at that wall and I said, “This is for you guys.’”

Cano grew up in Redondo Beach, a strong young man who played football and excelled at lots of other athletic activities. At age 17, he enlisted in the Marines, getting his mother’s signature on enlistment papers she believed were for him to enroll in college. Soon he was in boot camp at Camp Pendleton, full of bravado and with no idea what was ahead of him.

In one of his first days in camp, the drill instructor lined up the recruits and shouted, “If you think you can kick the ass of the guy in front of you, jump in front and face him.” Confident as ever, Cano raced to the front of the entire line – only to face the wrath of the instructor.

“He let me have it,” Cano said with a laugh. “He was right in my face and said, ‘So you think you can beat all these guys? Who do you think you are?’ I wondered, ‘What did I get myself into?’”

Even so, Cano remained confident and landed many leadership roles. His athletic prowess suited him well. While other recruits struggled to do one or two pull-ups, he would do 15 or 20. Eventually, he earned an award as the fittest recruit in camp.

“I actually enjoyed boot camp, if you can believe that,” he said.

Once sent to Vietnam, he rode in a helicopter flying above the rough terrain, scouting for the enemy and reporting back their position. On one occasion, he watched some of his buddies exit the helicopter, only to see them cut down by enemy fire right before his eyes. These are the images still kept alive in the minds of so many Vietnam Veterans who were fortunate enough to make it back, yet in many cases have struggled ever since.

“When I got released at El Toro, they gave me 136 bucks and sent me on my way,” he recalled. “I thought, ‘What do I do now?' We went out to dinner that night. I wore my uniform … I was proud and all that. I went to go sit down and I got spit on, yelled at.

“After that day I took my uniform off and I burned it. I never wanted to see one again. I just went out into the real world to look for work.”

Cano soon learned that vowing to forget his service in Vietnam wouldn’t be so easy as he began a job search.

“I couldn’t find a job anywhere,” he said. “Everywhere I went they asked, ‘Did you serve in the military? Did you serve in Vietnam?’ I would answer yes and they would say, ‘All right, thank you very much.’ That was it.”

But one thing Cano did before he left El Toro was to sign up with a recruiter from the Los Angeles Police Department. Unlike so many other employers, LAPD was looking for recruits with Cano’s background. It took almost a year before he heard back, but finally he was accepted into the police academy.

“I lasted eight weeks at the academy,” said. “Then they issued me a gun. I said to myself, ‘Either I’m going to kill more people or someone’s going to kill me.’ I talked to my family and they said, ‘You know Mike, if you don’t feel good with that, don’t do it.’ So I dropped out.”

Eventually, Cano was hired as an auditor at General Motors by a boss who had been a Master Sergeant in the war. He worked there 15 years, and the memories of Vietnam began to fade away. Even so, he happened to be playing the Marine Corps Anthem in his dry cleaning shop in Menifee several years ago when a Marine officer walked in.

“He asked if I was a Marine and I said yes,” Cano recalled. “We talked about it and that opened it up again. He said, ‘We have a VFW here and you’d be a prime person to help out.’ I went to a meeting and right away they put a box in front of me and said, ‘You’re the service officer.’ That’s what really got me interested.”

So today, Cano is very active in working with other Veterans, searching out the lonely and disenchanted and bringing them back to the fold. Although he tried for quite a while, he hasn’t forgotten the war experiences that helped shape his life. And as he walks past the Wall That Heals this weekend, he is grateful for those who have helped him along the way.

The Wall that Heals is open 24 hours a day through Sunday at 2 p.m. at Miller-Jones Memorial Park, located at 26770 Murrieta Road in Menifee.