Hey Trump, Time to Travel Forward

Has Donald Trump ever visited Vietnam?  Not as a soldier, but as a traveler interested in learning about a time in our history?  We know through reports that he was able to avoid Vietnam when he was a young man, but my guess is he has never visited the country, despite it being widely opened to foreign tourists since 1997.

If he had visited, he could have booked a visit to the Hanoi Hilton, where staged figures in crowded cells illustrate the horrors of war.  Indeed, had Donald Trump visited Vietnam, he surely would have different words and feelings when it comes to John McCain’s time as a prisoner of war. 

Travel has a profound impact on how we see the world around us and how we view history.  Bridging geographic and cultural differences can only be accomplished when we put ourselves out there and explore, with an open mind, far flung locales.  We gain new insights and new perspectives while we question past assumptions. 

"Travel Forward," the name of my most recent book, chronicles different Travel Forward moments that occur all around us.  They can be profound, such as the instance when I stood in Hanoi at the site of the prison where John McCain was held.  Learning about his experience there caused the hair on my arms to rise and a shiver to go down my spine.  It was made more profound when one considers he turned down opportunities to leave, robbing the North Vietnamese regime of a public relations coup.  If that isn’t courage, then I don’t know what is. 

I’ve been back to Vietnam since that first visit, and continue to gain insight into a part of the world that most Americans have only seen through the lens of war and that particular history.  I think about the soldiers sent there, not by their choice, who valiantly served.  And I think about the tens of thousands who paid the ultimate price. 

When I hear disparaging comments that question John McCain’s service to our country, or any soldier for that matter, I want to sit down and engage that individual in a discussion.  It’s never too late to see the world and a situation through a different paradigm. 

It’s never too late to Travel Forward, even for Donald Trump.