TROY – Four decades ago, Jack Hawkins was leading a platoon of Marines fighting in Vietnam. Today, he’s leading efforts to improve education in the southeast Asian country and its neighbor Cambodia.

Hawkins, chancellor of Troy University, is visiting the two nations this month. He’s going to Vietnam to observe a Troy satellite campus there hold its first commencement ceremony. He’ll visit Cambodia to meet with education officials and discuss plans for Troy to help the war-ravaged country rebuild its education system.

According to Hawkins, the partnership between Troy and Vietnam and his own experiences in visiting the country on trips earlier this decade illustrates the human capacity for laying bitterness aside and working with former rivals toward a better future.

Hawkins made his first visit back to Vietnam in 2002. Troy was considering establishing programs over there, and Hawkins went over on a fact-finding mission. Hawkins said he originally felt apprehensive about returning to Vietnam. He said visiting a museum in Hanoi that once housed American prisoners of war was a chilling experience for him, but eventually helped him to overcome his feelings about the past.

“Not only were they trying to kill us, we were trying to kill them,” Hawkins said, recalling the war. “...When I went back in 2002, I saw very little evidence of war. I expected to see bunkers and concertina wire, the results of war. All that was gone. What I saw was a country where 60 percent of the people weren’t even alive when I was there the first time.”

Today, Hawkins said visiting Vietnam is no different for him than visiting any other country.

“It’s a healthy experience,” he said. “I’d recommend it to anyone who served.”

According to Hawkins, putting aside Cold War bitterness and working with former antagonists like Vietnam and Cambodia is important to America’s ability to continue to compete in a global economy.

“To hang on to that hate is harmful, it’s harmful to individuals and harmful to countries,” he said.

Hawkins said forging academic links with the two nations will lead to trade opportunities later.

Hawkins said Alabama has benefited from contacts with developing nations in the past, and should continue to encourage them to ensure a prosperous future. To that end, Troy University is developing an international trade program that will help Alabama communities find markets overseas and foreign investment for local products.

“Alabama has been successful in recruiting global corporations,” he said. “The university is committed to being a player.”