Until I took this trip with NextTribe, my favorite all-women travel group, I always associated Vietnam with the ugly war of the 1960s and 70s.  It hit my generation hard, affecting all those around me. You couldn’t avoid it; the nightly news always included horror stories, body counts, protests and counter-protests. It tore our country apart.  I grieved over the loss of friends, wrote admission letters to get my brother into college, and helped others leave for Canada to avoid the draft. March 2023 commemorated 50 years since the war ended and this trip seemed like a good opportunity to reconcile my old, negative association with the modern reality.
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