A sign of changing times

The Vietnam War was a defining event for the baby boom generation. Most Americans born from 1946 to 1964 were either drafted and served in the US military during the conflict or knew of soldiers - friends and relatives included - who never made it home from the fight.
Heavy American involvement in the war, politically packaged as a necessary effort against the spread of communism, lasted from 1964 to 1975.
Nearly 9mn Americans served in the military during the era.
About 58,000 died, and many of their names are on the heavily visited Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, and other memorials dedicated to the war throughout the United States.
Who could forget the draft-card burnings and other anti-war protests that took place during the administrations of presidents Lyndon B Johnson and Richard Nixon?
Considering all that, it’s remarkable now that President Barack Obama, who was a young child when America’s involvement in the war started and just a teenager when it ended, is in that Southeast Asian nation last week.
On Monday, Obama lifted the ban on sales of weapons to the communist country.
Obama hopes for increased trade with Vietnam.
Already President Tran Dai Quang has promised the US Navy more access to valuable ports.
Vietnam before, during and after the war was envied for its strategic location on the South China Sea for both commercial trade and military purposes.
The end of fighting, a lot of time and the normalisation of relations between the two countries have enabled the US
and Vietnam to see the value that the other brings.
It helps that thousands of Vietnamese and Southeast Asians have been resettled in the United States since the war ended.
A couple of generations of Southeast Asian families have sent their children to US schools, raised them in US neighbourhoods and watched them grow into independent adults living the American dream.
Like the leader of Cuba, which Obama visited earlier this year, the Vietnamese president is striving to normalise relations.
Cuba, like Vietnam, needs to do more to improve its human rights record so that it no longer is viewed as an oppressive regime.
Like the animosity that followed fighting in World War I and World War II, the pain of the past has to be put aside so that people and countries can move forward.
Besides, US weaponry and the military now are turned to fighting the Islamic State and militants in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

- Readers may write to Lewis W Diuguid, a member of The Kansas City Star’s editorial board, by e-mail: [email protected]