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The Vietnam War was a searing conflict that cost 58,000 American lives. Thirty years later, for many Americans the war still echoes in college classrooms, within families and in the nation’s political campaigns. But for most Vietnamese, the “American War” that killed an estimated 1 million people or more is their parents’ war, only one chapter in the country’s long history of armed struggle. The conflict with the U.S. is no longer an issue; the Vietnamese have largely moved on.

Three decades after the fall of Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam is enjoying an economic resurgence and is eager to embrace America, not only as a trading partner but also as a hedge against its historical rival, China. More than 60 percent of all Vietnamese were born after 1975, the year the last U.S. soldier left Vietnam, and today the nation is a vibrant, colorful place that provides a robust contrast to the old black-and-white images of tragedy still imprinted on Americans’ minds. As one former U.S. ambassador observes: “The Vietnamese could teach us a lot about how to focus on the present and the future.”