Cantu served in Vietnam, taught artillery, retired in Bella Vista
Bella Vista resident Luis Cantu served two tours in Vietnam during a 28- year military career, worked another 11 years as an accountant and eventually retired in Bella Vista to be closer to family members.
He wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with Arkansas, he said, because he spent some of his career at Fort Chaffee in Fort Smith. His career, which started in the 1950s, also took him to Germany and Hawaii, though he spent a great deal of his time at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, where he worked as a field artillery instructor.
“I was a little bit familiar with this area,” he said.
During his career, he served as an intelligence sergeant in Vietnam in 1966 and again in 1971.
He retired from the military in 1979, then started an accounting career with the Northrop and Lockheed corporations that lasted 11 years.
In 2004, his wife retired and they got a recreational vehicle to tour the country, eventually traveling through all 50 states. Alaska was the last one, he said, and they took the Alaskan highway to visit the state in 2011.
Before moving to Bella Vista, Cantu said he also was tasked on at least a few occasions with speaking, on occasion in front of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall.
It wasn’t hard to speak, he said, because his work as an instructor prepared him to speak in front of groups, but he did a great deal of research to ensure he was accurate.
“I wasn’t going to make a fool of myself, but speaking was easy for me,” he said.
He focused on the Vietnam War in large part because he was familiar with it, he explained.
Veterans from that war had to fight the war itself before struggling with the largely anti-war general public after returning home and later on the diseases caused by Agent Orange — a defoliant used to break up tree cover during the war that often ended up on the soldiers themselves.
“We were not really welcomed back by the civilian community,” he said.
Cantu recalled returning from Vietnam and having a tough time hailing a cab in his military uniform.
They stayed in Fort Sill for a while, he explained, and moved to Bella Vista about two years ago.
“I like it very well; the only problem is I don’t golf,” he said.
They do use amenities, though. Cantu explained he walks trails in the area and tries to get out two to three times each week to keep up his strength.
“We’re really enjoying our lives here,” he said.