Chicken Soup for the Traveler's Soul by Jack Canfield

Author:Jack Canfield [Canfield, Jack; Hansen, Mark Victor; Zikman, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicken Soup for the Soul
Published: 2012-09-07T21:34:00+00:00

Road to Reconciliation

A journey is best measured in friends rather than miles.

Tim Cahill

I was in Vietnam from 1970 to 1971. I was a nineteen-year-old grunt—a foot soldier. I spent most of my time in the field scrounging through the jungle and rice paddies, looking for the “enemy.” In February 1971, barely six months after my arrival, my platoon was out on a reconnaissance in the central highlands. I saw a clump of grass on the road and in the millionth of a second it took me to say to myself, Hmm, I better not step on that, I stepped on it. The next thing I remember I was on the ground screaming and writhing in pain.

I had placed my foot on what we called a “toe popper,” an antipersonnel land mine. I lost my right foot and part of my right calf. Although it was a very traumatic experience, I also felt tremendous relief and happiness—I knew it was my plane ticket home.

Back in the States, I was fitted with an artificial leg and I threw away all my souvenirs of Vietnam—my photographs, my uniform and my Purple Heart. They had no value to me. They reminded me of something of which I wasn’t really proud and I had one constant reminder: one artificial leg.

Twenty-six years passed, and I never once thought about returning to Vietnam—until I received a newsletter from an organization called World T.E.A.M. Sports. In it, they announced their upcoming Vietnam Challenge. I had never heard of it before.

A team of Americans, Australians and North Vietnamese veterans and civilians would ride bicycles down Vietnam’s main freeway, freeway One, from the north to the south, a distance of twelve-hundred miles. Being a cyclist and a fan of a good challenge, I knew that I wanted to go, and I applied.

I was accepted and a flood of emotions filled my heart and soul. Wonder and excitement. Hesitation and fear.

The possibility of meeting a former North Vietnamese soldier fascinated me. Maybe, just maybe, we shared similar feelings. Thrown into war, how did he feel when he was being attacked? What was it like fighting us?

I was also curious about my fellow veterans. I had had nothing to do with Vietnam veterans for twenty-six years. What would it be like to travel with a whole group of them?

Four months later, I found myself on a plane with more than thirty team members heading back to a place I knew only as a war, not a real country with real people. As I looked at the faces of the other veterans, I wondered if that’s how I must have looked. How would the North Vietnamese people react? How would we react?

Upon our arrival, we were warmly greeted by open arms, flowers and gracious smiles at Hanoi’s airport. After a few days in the capital, we were ready to hit the road.

On the first day of January 1998, I was riding out of Hanoi with my eighty American and Vietnamese war veteran teammates. The energy in the air was ecstatic.

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