Travel to Remember, Return to Serve
This month, during a journey through Southeast Asia, I had the opportunity to visit Vietnam and Cambodia—two extraordinary countries, rich in culture, beauty, and wonderful people, but also deeply marked by histories of war, violence, and loss.
Traveling always allows us to discover new places, cultures, and ways of life. However, some journeys do something more: they compel us to pause, question ourselves, and look at history—and at our own present—from a different perspective.
This was one of those journeys.
Vietnam: When Learning History Changes Our Perspective
Vietnam had been under French colonial rule and was later occupied by Japan during World War II. At the end of the war, a struggle for independence began, culminating in France’s defeat in 1954.
The country was temporarily divided: a communist-led government in the north and an anti-communist government in the south backed by the United States. Amid the Cold War and fears about the spread of communism in Asia, the United States gradually increased its involvement until it became directly engaged in a war that would last for years.
As happens far too often in armed conflicts, civilians paid a devastating price. Millions of people died, villages were destroyed, families were displaced, and entire generations were marked by a war whose consequences can still be felt today.
Walking through Vietnam after learning more deeply about its history felt different. Behind the dates and events we study are human beings who had to live through their consequences.
It also made me reflect on something that is not always comfortable: learning from history requires us to be willing to acknowledge that our own countries and governments can also make mistakes.
Recognizing the mistakes of the past does not mean loving the country where we live any less. It means having the maturity and courage to study those mistakes, acknowledge the suffering they caused, and learn from them so that we do not repeat them.
Journalists also played a fundamental role during the Vietnam War. Their photographs, reports, and testimonies brought images into millions of homes that revealed a reality of the war that many people had not previously seen. Growing public opposition, together with military, political, and diplomatic factors, eventually contributed to the U.S. withdrawal.
This also made me think about the value of those who dare to tell others what is happening. Raising your voice and speaking the truth can have consequences. It can bring criticism, fear, and even retaliation.
But silence also has consequences.
Cambodia: When Numbers Take on Faces
If Vietnam made me reflect, Cambodia made that reflection deeply personal.
The Vietnam War also reached neighboring Cambodia. Bombing, civil war, and political instability were part of a complex set of circumstances that contributed to the rise of the Khmer Rouge.
In 1975, the Khmer Rouge took control of the country under the leadership of Pol Pot. In an attempt to radically transform society, millions of people were forced to leave the cities and work in the countryside under inhumane conditions.
In less than four years, nearly two million people died as a result of executions, starvation, disease, and forced labor. Approximately one-quarter of the country’s population was lost.
It is a number that is difficult to comprehend.
Until you walk through the places where it happened.
We visited Tuol Sleng, a former school that the Khmer Rouge converted into the prison and torture center known as S-21. There, I had the opportunity to meet Chum Mey, one of the few survivors of that place who is still alive today.
Standing in front of someone who survived what you have just witnessed and learned about creates a feeling that is difficult to explain.
History is no longer something that happened decades ago.
It has a face. It has a voice. It is standing in front of you.
We then visited Choeung Ek, one of the sites known as the Killing Fields, where thousands of people were executed and buried in mass graves.
Walking through that place was one of the most difficult experiences of the journey. Seeing the human remains of victims and knowing that thousands of people were buried beneath that ground creates a weight that is difficult to describe. For me, it felt dark, heavy, and profoundly sad.
You are no longer reading that millions of people died.
You are walking where human beings were taken to die.
And then you understand that behind every number was a person. Someone had a mother, a father, children, siblings, dreams, and a life they expected to continue living.
When History Walks Beside You
But Cambodia’s history was not only in the museums or the places we visited.
It was traveling with us.
Our own guide was only nine years old during the Khmer Rouge regime. He was separated from his family and forced to work under inhumane conditions. One of his brothers died. Later, his father was able to search for and reunite the members of the family who had survived.
Hearing his story added another dimension to everything we had already witnessed.
It is one thing to read that nearly two million people died. It is something entirely different to meet a survivor of a prison, walk through the places where executions occurred, see the remains of those who died there, and then hear the person accompanying you explain that he, too, was one of those children.
That is when I understood something that has stayed with me:
History is not as far away as we think.
It still walks among us, in the people who survived to tell it.
Learning Even When History Hurts
It is crucial that we learn from history, even when it is painful. Even when we discover things that challenge what we have always believed or force us to acknowledge mistakes made by our own countries.
We cannot change what happened.
But we can decide what we do with what we learn.
We can ignore it. We can justify it. We can convince ourselves that it happened too long ago or too far away to have anything to do with us.
Or we can allow it to make us more conscious of the value of every human life.
I believe there is nothing more valuable than life. And learning to value life means defending not only our own lives or the lives of those who think, speak, believe, or look like us.
It means recognizing the value of every human being.
From History to the Present
Over the past several months, we have been working to bring aid to Venezuela.
It has been much more difficult than I imagined. From finding an economically viable way to send aid to navigating complex regulations and processes, this effort has often been exhausting and frustrating.
And now, new needs have emerged in our sister country of Colombia.
I admit that after the difficulties we experienced while trying to help Venezuela, there are moments when fatigue—and even doubt—sets in:
Do we try again?
After this journey, my answer is yes.
Because one difficult experience cannot become an excuse to stop helping.
We cannot solve every problem in the world. Nor can we help every person who is suffering.
But we can choose not to be indifferent.
History shows us what can happen when we stop seeing others as human beings, when we remain silent in the face of suffering, or when we decide that other people’s problems are none of our concern.
Serving does not always mean doing something extraordinary. Sometimes it means donating. Other times, it means giving our time. Listening. Educating. Standing up for someone. Sharing information. Simply asking: How can I help?
What matters is that we do not allow exhaustion, frustration, or the busyness of our own lives to take away our ability to look around us and recognize someone who needs our help.
Travel to Remember, Return to Serve
I returned from this journey with photographs, memories, and wonderful experiences.
But I also returned with questions.
Questions that I want to share with you today:
What must we learn from our history so that we do not repeat it?
What are we willing to do when we witness the suffering of others?
And what can you do today to help someone who is suffering or needs you?
Perhaps that is one of the greatest reasons to travel: not simply to discover new places, but to allow what we see, hear, and experience to transform us.
Travel to discover.
Travel to learn.
Travel to remember and return to serve.
May the busyness of life and the challenges we face never prevent us from serving and helping others.
With peace, hope, and love,
Dr. Denisse Centeno Lamas
Sources Consulted
U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian — Vietnam/Indochina
U.S. National Archives — Vietnam War
U.S. National Archives — Vietnam War Casualty Statistics
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — Cambodia
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — S-21, Tuol Sleng
Choeung Ek Genocidal Center
In addition to the historical sources consulted, this article reflects personal observations and experiences during visits to Vietnam, the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, and the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, as well as testimonies shared during the journey through Cambodia.