 Welcome back to Carlucci Auditorium. So we've reached the closing plenary in our second annual dialogue on the war legacies and peace in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, thanks to everyone who's joined all the roundtables and sessions today. For me, the only regret is that I could only be in one of the roundtables at a time and wasn't in the others that were concurrent, but I'm sure I will hear about it from those participants. We have saved some of the most compelling presenters for the last session, and several of them have recently arrived back from Vietnam. We have a lot of things to talk about, and there's a lot to talk about. We want to try, before it's 5 p.m., as planned, to continue our conversation with you today, in order to overcome the consequences of the war, to overcome the consequences of the war and to build peace, and to follow the ideals of Laos. We want to know how we can achieve what we're doing today and how we can move forward to keep the country and our people safe. We want to express our condolences to the President of the United States and to the President of the United States of Vietnam. Today, we're working in the field of foreign affairs, as well as in the work in Vietnam. It's very, very good. And today, I'd like to share with United States President Biden the issues related to us. Finally, we, Mr. Nguyen Van Ruin, President of the United States's Congress and the National Security Council, Today, I have a lot of experience as a member of VAPA as a member of the National Assembly of Vietnam. I was a member of the National Assembly of Vietnam when I was a child. Among us, Phạm Luân Dung was a member of the National Assembly of Vietnam. I was a member of the National Assembly of Vietnam. I was a member of the National Assembly of Vietnam. Thank you, Mr. President. We would like to thank the three of you. We would like to thank the ambassador, Mark Nepper. USIP for putting this together. I really appreciate the invitation to join you today. I apologize for only being able to make this last session. It sounds like you had some very interesting sessions yesterday, including with our colleague at the NSC, Dr. Mera Rapphooper, this morning with Senator Jeff Merkley, of course, who's emerged as an incredibly strong supporter of the US-Vietnam relationship. But I guess before I begin, let me just, I would like to just note the passing of General Wen Ji-ving, and of course he, someone who had contributed so much to our two countries' relationship over many years, including the reconciliation between our two nations, and so certainly have my and our government's condolences on his passing. But I just, as Andrew alluded, I just flew in from Hanoi after being there for, I think no one could argue was an incredibly successful visit by President Biden. You know, we use the word historic and milestone and momentous a lot. I mean, it often, you know, it's become like a cliche when we talk about a big visit like this, or like a bumper sticker. But in reality, this truly was a historic momentous milestone in our two countries' ties. You know, we started off this year thinking, you know, how best can we commemorate 10 years of the US-Vietnam comprehensive partnership? And certainly, you know, we wanted to look back, reflect on just how far we've come for the past 10 years. And virtually any area you can think of, trade and investment, science, technology, defense and security, education, training, people-to-people ties, cultural ties, you name it, you know, if it's worth doing, the US and Vietnam have been doing it and doing it, you know, on a growing basis, a growing trajectory every year over the last 10 years. And I think as a reflection of the consequence with which Washington looks at the US-Vietnam relationship, we've had a lot of senior visitors this year. You know, one fourth of the US cabinet, the President's cabinet, has visited Vietnam this year. And this was even before we were discussing the idea of the President coming. We had, of course, the USS Ronald Reagan visited. We had senior congressional delegations to include that led by Senator Merkley on the Democratic side, Senator Crapo on the Republican side, not too long after we had the largest business mission ever to Vietnam put together by US-Ausian Business Council back in May. So, I mean, this year was already shaping up to be a pretty special one in terms of our two countries' joint commemoration, again, of the 10th anniversary of the Conference of Partnership. But then we were able to work things out with our friends, of course, under the leadership of the White House and the National Security Council, but working very closely with our Vietnamese partners. We were able to arrange the visit by the President September 10th and 11th, which heralded the announcement of an upgrade, not just one level, but two, as you all know. So jumping from Comprehensive Partnership to Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and skipping the middle rung of Strategic Partnership altogether, which is unprecedented. I mean, this has never happened before. But I think it's as strong a reflection as possible of, again, I think the consequence that both of our leaders, both of our countries, put into this bilateral relationship. This upgrade, a significant upgrade, is a reflection of where our two countries already are in terms of our cooperative relationship. But it's also a reflection of our strong will about where we want to go next and how we can either deepen already existing cooperation even more or expand into new and novel and exciting areas going forward. I think you saw as part of the documents that came out from the visit, the fact sheet that the White House put out, but of course the joint statement that the U.S. and Vietnam put out together, a very strong focus on very future-oriented efforts, whether it's working together to help Vietnam, to work with Vietnam creating an innovation-based, sort of high-tech-centered economy and to do this through education programs, training programs, workforce development, workforce accelerators, to help create the kind of workforce that Vietnam needs to address the challenges and the opportunities of the 21st century. And so we're very pleased that there were so many concrete announcements that will involve training and education and really the United States aligning itself with the very significant and ambitious goals that Vietnam itself has set for its future, whether it's to be a net-zero carbon economy by 2050, whether it's to be a high-income economy by 2045, whether it's to be a digital economy by 2030. These are all goals in which the United States is proud to be a partner of Vietnam. And I think either, you know, by intention, sometimes by accident, but regardless with great focus, the United States and Vietnam have ended up being virtually on the same page for all of these things. And we're very pleased that we see ourselves as part of the future that Vietnam has set for itself. And so I think it's important to remember that the United States is very much wants to be, to partner with Vietnam, to deepen this partnership, to look for ways, again, that we can expand existing cooperation but also look for new and exciting areas of new and different cooperation. But all the while, while all this was happening and a lot of focus on high-tech cooperation, Prime Minister Pham Minh Ching and President Biden met with tech leaders from both countries, including, you know, Vietnamese sort of name brands like VinFast, Vina Games, FPT, Momo, Vietnam Air. I know I'm missing one. The TechScope, and they had, you know, great American companies as well, like Boeing, Amcor, Global Foundries, Marvell, which is a semiconductor maker. We had Intel there in Google. So again, trying to figure out ways where our two countries' leading tech firms can work together to help usher the way forward for a future in which the United States and Vietnam are very, you know, that our two countries, our two economies are inextricably tied together. And I can't think, again, of a better, even more public or more resounding way to show the world, to show our two countries, to show our two peoples, that the United States and Vietnam are moving forward shoulder to shoulder together in a future in which our fates are tied so closely. But as all this focus on the future was taking place, and I guess circling back to the theme of this last two days at this dialogue was, of course, the very strong recognition about the importance that reconciliation efforts have played in bringing our relationship to where it is today. Recognizing that our efforts at reconciliation predate even normalization. Of course, we're in the 28th year since normalization, but we just celebrated the 30th year of joint field activities between VNOSMP and DPAA. And not to mention all the work we're doing, whether to address war legacy issues, whether it's the search for the ongoing search for missing American service members, and hopefully the counting for them. Now the effort's underway to help Vietnam account for its own fallen through both archival research at Harvard University, and I know Tony's in the audience somewhere. Tony, there he is. As well as DNA analysis, something led by our U.S. Agency for International Development. I saw Tony Colb. There he is in the back. Thank you, Tony, for your efforts there. But also UXO remediation led, in part by the State Department, but also many different international groups, like peace trees, excuse me, peace trees, and Norwegian people's aid and others. And then of course the Bien Hoa, well, the overall dioxin remediation effort, which successfully concluded at Denang a couple of years ago and is now underway at Bien Hoa. But all of these areas are areas in which the United States and Vietnam are working closely together. The United States is fully committed to seeing these through. And I think on the occasion of the President's visit, we had a very moving event in which you had a couple of American veterans who live in Vietnam. And you had a Vietnamese veteran come together and we handed over the diary that belonged to this Vietnamese veteran. And at the same time, some items were handed over from the Vietnamese side to our side, kind of personal items that had belonged to American soldiers that were being returned to us, as well as turning over our cargo research. Again, thanks to Harvard University, we handed it over to the Vietnamese side. And so really, so against the backdrop of this summit that was very focused on the future and high-tech cooperation, innovation, entrepreneurship, creativity, still there was this very strong recognition and importance of ongoing efforts and cooperation to promote reconciliation, to continue to address war-legacy issues. And this is something I think that we in the United States are certainly committed to going forward. And I would just conclude by saying the final event the President did before going to the airport. And I know many of you saw this in our own, where's Major Chuang? He was part of this, there he is, was when the President visited the McCain, John McCain marker there by Chuck Buck Lake. I know we all know it. But again, very moving for him to go with Senator John Kerry to honor the memory of Senator McCain and really that sort of tableau of the President with Senator Kerry in front of the marker to John McCain and just the recognition that it took great courage on the part of, well, these two individuals, Republican and Democrat, but also joining hands with people of great courage in Vietnam, who at the same, you know, around that time, and others who strongly believed in the importance of trying to address issues related to the war, to try and normalize our relationship. And so, I think it was very fitting the President on his way out of Hanoi stopped there to acknowledge the role that John McCain played. Again, honoring the past, but with a very clear vision and very strong focus on the future of our relationship. So I'll stop there. I've probably gone on too long. But it was, again, no overstatement to say this visit was truly historic and truly an honor. Our deputies' Secretary Melissa Brown was there as well. We had fun putting that visit together. So, but yeah, truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. So thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm pleased to return to Washington, D.C. to attend the second dialogue on New Allegiance and Peace. First of all, I would like to thank the organizing committee for inviting me to attend and speak at this dialogue. As you know, the dialogue on the consequences of war and peace we cannot help but mention that the war history has been impeded with the image. We cannot forget to report about the history of war which recorded many wars, many wars, very devastating. And the consequences is enormous. That's caused a lot of damages in terms of people and assets. So many super structures, buildings, agriculture, I mean the cultures never be restored. The consequences of war are extremely huge. It is an obsession in the mind of every person. Remnants of war take many years for people to recover from the war-torned economy. In Vietnam, the chemical war was even more brutal. Even though the war has been over for nearly 50 years, the overcoming of the consequences of war is in some way that all ruling parties must pay attention to. Vietnam has made great effort to heal the wounds of war, improving the environment, killing mice and taking care of the people, providing social policy. The galaxy of the war has led Vietnam to many sorrows, losses and severe consequences for many generations of Vietnamese people. Recently, in the spirit of putting aside the parts, look forward to the future. Vietnam and the US has continued to promote more effectively and practical solutions to heal the wounds of the war. After 28 years of Vietnam and the US normalization, the limiting relations and 10 years of establishing a comprehensive partnership in September 2023. The General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam and US President Joe Biden signed an agreement to upgrade the relationship of the two countries to comprehensive strategic partnerships. The cooperation to overcome the consequences of war is considered the foundation of the two countries as contributing to the process of reconciliation, healing the chest between two countries, opening the new opportunities for cooperation. In that spirit, a series of proposed projects has been implemented, recognizing joint efforts in Vietnam and the US cooperation on overcoming the consequences of war, including the completion of the detoxification project in Da Nang and continue to implement the death scene project in Binh Hoa Airport and the project to support improving the quality of life of the people impacted with the agent orange. In 8 provinces, the project for communications on overcoming the possible bomb, mice, and chemical agents. The US and the Vietnamese government, a US government has sponsored a number of the programs for Vietnam for nearly three decades with the purpose of cleaning the demand landmice explosive materials, educating about the risk of mice explosive materials. Although the US government has provided aid to Vietnam, but that is still very modest compared to the consequences, the serious level of the consequences that the US goes to the Vietnamese people. But the support and focus on certain environmental issues why the taking care of the people, the life of the victims of orange agents and else is still very limited. Many have passed away because they couldn't wait. They don't have time to wait. Actually the pain of the consequences of war still holds. The living have not been completely resolved. In the coming time, with the help from the US, Vietnam will overcome the consequences of war and to be comparable with the new relationship between Vietnam and the US in the new era. In this regard, I'd like to propose the following comments. Firstly, both sides need to build a comprehensive mechanism to resolve the consequences of war in a stable, long-term and systematic way. Secondly, Vietnam hopes that the US will continue to promote stronger cooperation in the fields of environmental or treatment overcoming the consequences of war and toxic chemical deltions in Vietnam. Mobilizing and committing resources to treat deltion pollution has been our airport and full-cut airport co-ordinate to evaluate the results of deltion treatment. At the other airport, I would like to propose the following comments. Thirdly, continue effectively implementing projects to support improving the quality of life of people with the disability and victims of the orange agent and provide additional resources to support the orange agent, the victims to improve the life which has been visible. Fourthly, the US government considers the support construction of the deltion, the unassisted center and medical examination and treatment facilities, rehabilitative system facilities and provision of medical and medical equipment to help victims of orange agent to help them improve the life and prevent the intelligence and transformation to other generations. Fifthly, to promote communication focusing on implementation or displays of contents and cooperation between Vietnam and the US to overcome the consequences of war and chemical or toxic and the war remains a museum in Ho Chi Minh City and disables and displace that in the An Luy Airport. Sixthly, organize exchange visits, create the condition for young people with disability impacted by orange agent, in particular to support them to have more interaction with the US Asian American people so that they have more confidence and more love. They can learn and strive more for better relationships. Ladies and gentlemen, as a country that has suffered the severe consequences of war, we always wish and call on countries to respect peace, not that we will break out and prohibit the research and use of chemicals and weapons, the weapons of mass destruction so that our people, our humanity can live in the wounds of peace, stability, cooperation and development. Thank you very much. First of all, let me express my sincere thanks to the USIP for allowing the opportunity to be here today. I remember doing the first half day of the dialogue. Ambassador Ted also said that we have to be sincere about the past. We have to look at the past and tell the young generation what was going on between the two countries. Even though a lot of people do agree with his statement, we do understand that this is one of the tasks for education. I was asked by the organizer to talk about the role of education in reconciliation, and we know that it is one of the main tasks of education is to help the young generation to understand better about the war, but we do have to acknowledge the fact that this is quite challenging for both sides, for the people from two countries to look at the war in the way that there is a sense of common understanding. There are still a lot of differences in the way people look at the war and we have to acknowledge the fact that there are not two sides of the war but three sides, the north of Vietnam, the south of Vietnam and the US. After listening to so many discussions during our dialogue in one and a half days, I understand that all of the project of the effort of this war-legacy project under the UCIP has a very important role in helping people to understand each other, to understand each other's culture, history, and the way we look at the war. I heard about there were only three paragraphs in historic books for students here at the US about Vietnam War and I heard that it has been improved recently that nowadays a student in California studies spent at least one or two weeks to study about Vietnam wars. But I do believe that it's not enough. There are a lot to be done in order for the war conciliation. However, we do know that there are positive sides. There are a lot of Vietnam studies programs in almost all of the big US universities and in Vietnam, the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam is also one of the institutions that has the American Studies program and we recently signed an MOU with the Columbia University to help each other to strengthen our American Studies program in Vietnam and Vietnam Studies in the US. So basically what I think in terms of education, even though there is still a lot of efforts to be done in order to foster common understanding of the war, what education should aim to do is to help people understand the devastating consequences of the war and to help the two countries not to repeat the mistakes in the past. There is one very positive side of education exchange between the people and the people. You may know that Vietnam ranked the fifth among countries who have the most many students in the US. We ranked only after China, India, Canada and South Korea. And the number of Vietnamese students in the US now is more than 30,000 students and it is almost one-sixth of our overall students studying abroad and the US ranks the second after Australia in terms of destination for our students. It means something because for Vietnamese parents children are their most valuable assets and sending their children to study in a country is a very good signal of willing for conciliation and getting over the war. So I think that after what happened last Sunday people said that we now enter a new chapter of our relationship and what education is the aim of education in the comprehensive strategic partnership term. I think that this is a very good term for education to be a leading factor in terms of helping the two countries to fulfill all the objectives stated in the choice statement between the two leaders of the countries and the key was high technology, semiconductor production and digital innovation. So the cooperation between the two countries in terms of training of the high-tech workforce is one of the win-win solutions for the two countries and we know that Vietnam can play some role in the semiconductor market in the semiconductor production chain but if we look at the example of Taiwan it needs at least 10 years for Taiwan to develop its high-tech workforce semiconductor engineers. So we are looking forward for the cooperation between the U.S. and Vietnam in terms of helping our country to build up and to develop our high-tech workforce. And last but not least, there is a lot to be learned from the team of strong supporters of the U.S.-Vietnam relationship from both countries and members of that team of the provocator for our relations are ambassadors of the U.S. to Vietnam including Ambassador McNapur in the luncheon organized by our president, to President Biden. We met with Ambassador McNapur, with Dan Crichton-Brink and many other Vietnamese ambassadors to the U.S. and they are all very optimistic about our relations and what I'm looking for is you sharing with the young generation of how miracle you have, efforts you have done in order to bring the two countries to where we are now and with that I would like to end my speech and that is one of the other objective for you in the remaining time of your term. Thank you very much. Please join me in thanking our three distinguished speakers. Hello to the President of the U.S. and the President of the United States. I would like to welcome you to the United States to return to Vietnam. This is the second year of the day in Washington and that is the day of the President of the U.S. I am the President of the U.S. and he has been here for a long time. He is the Director of the Foreign Affairs Administration and then he is the Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and he has a three-meter laser, a brown, a model of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a project for the Southeast Asia, and the work on the sea, such as the mainland. I have been working in Jakarta, Singapore and I have experience in Vietnam. Recently, I have been working with the President and the U.S. government team to come to Vietnam. The relationship between Vietnam and the U.S. and we care about it. The relationship that we see in the region is very much connected to the U.S. and we continue to hope to develop with the relationship with the countries. Thank you. Thank you. I would like to thank the U.S. and the U.S. for inviting me to join this program. This is the second time I have come to this program. I would like to thank the U.S. for taking part in this program and the results of the competition and the peace talks. I wish the U.S. and the U.S. a new relationship. The partnership between the two countries. Well, you see, in the U.S., most people know Vietnam War but actually the war in that region is included in the whole three countries, the Indochina countries. Cambodia has been bombarded since as early as 1968 and that is one of the reasons why the politicians in Cambodia got differences and then led to the breakup and civil war in the 1970s. It is one of the reasons because the Ho Chi Minh trail as the world knows calmed down and then ran adjacent the border of Cambodia. So the bombing including the Yellow Agent also along the trail since 1968 or as early as late 1967 affected the whole people of Cambodia live on three or four province along this border as well. So that is how we very much appreciate the U.S. IP for including Cambodia in this war legacy program and war legacy and peace program. Let's see. For decades of war, three decades of war almost that we entered into the war it left with a lot of destruction but also with the psychological and leftover of landmines and remnants of war, such as the unexploded and so on so it leave trail of victims even after the war completed until 1998 that we implemented the win-win policy that we can abolish and dismantle all the Khmeru fashions and then we can see the real peace. That is why through our experience we believe that all war cannot end the war by war it have to be end by negotiation and reconciliation and so on and that is how we believe that the program would help Cambodian as well. The general has talked about recommendations about what we should do and our previous speaker also talking about this in Vietnam but I would like to request the U.S. to expand that program to all the three countries because we all receive the same effect from the war which is known as Vietnam's war as well. You see after the war ended Cambodia has remained on six million mines in the four to six million mines in the countries which we have to clear even till now we are still doing our most things to clear all the mines for our agricultural farm lands and so on and from year to year thousands of people were victim to the land mine and left over by the war we do believe that land mine and cluster bomb should be considered as the banned weapons as well as the chemical weapons as well so this is how we propose that it should be considered this way because of each of them in land mine the Cambodian has done quite well and that is how we become experts in the region in demining and we have from the time of during the mid-90s that we received assistance from the U.N. and from the world including the U.S. to help us in demining in the area we become an expert and now we are participating in the U.N. peacekeeping as well to demine the area of the infested with land mines and the remnants of war we send our deminer to nine countries in Africa and in the Middle East and we even now training the Ukrainian deminer in Cambodia to help them to demine the mine in war in Ukraine we also have cooperated quite well with the U.S. in the field of MIA and POW our cooperation has done well and it remain around 40 remaining of the MIA in Sycamore it remain because the country was locked down because of the COVID during the 2021-22 and now we open up again so we start the cooperation again so I am not going to talk much on this but what my I would like to put a request to the U.S. and to the public that the first is that please consider expanding all the program to Cambodia including education our young Cambodia is looking for always values high education from the U.S. we have a lot of students coming to the to study in the U.S. parent or money rather than we do have some Fulbright but it's just a few students that have Fulbright the rest was on their own because they value the value of education here that's why they send the children here as well so one of the program and also the rehabilitation program for the victims especially victims of the yellow agents which affected the young born baby as well along those four or five province in the north eastern province and eastern Mekong province and also the last of our request is that we have left with the death of war which we consider as a death of war and we would appear to the U.S. if it converted into humanitarian assistance on these programs it would be seen as rehabilitation and reconciliation between the teams and the U.S. I thank you. Thank you very much. Great so I have the privilege of being your last speaker I better keep it interesting one thing I will say in my very long title in reality where I really focus is across all of Southeast Asia and often people ask me why have I focused my whole career in Southeast Asia and I'll tell you it's exactly because of what we're discussing today it's the idea that you can still be so forward leaning and look to the future while also paying great respect and learning from the lessons of the past so when I think about Vietnam we're still riding the high of the president's visit and it truly was such an honor to be part of it and so much hard work to get there but really proud of what we accomplished then when it comes to Laos they're taking on the ASEAN chairmanship this is a really a big role for any ASEAN member state but looking ahead when we have the continued war in Ukraine when we have the escalating crisis in Burma and how to deal with that it's a really big responsibility and then when it comes to Cambodia we've got a new prime minister we've got a lot of opportunity to do new things and continue to build on our success I also have a soft spot for Cambodia because Khmer was my first language I learned in the Foreign Service and for those of you who speak Khmer you can speak Vietnamese it's a very difficult language so there was a lot of sweat and tears to accomplish that so I thought I would focus since we had so many other esteemed colleagues on the panel focusing on Vietnam talk a little bit more about Cambodia and about Laos as well I will note that throughout the whole planning for the upgrade to the comprehensive strategic partnership for Vietnam constant discussion about needing to honor the foundation that legacy issues offered it's the very reason we were able to upgrade because we had made so much progress and done so much together so one thing as high level officials working on Vietnam we often have to brief our principals to remind them that we haven't put everything behind us acknowledging that our past still matters and that there's no need to forget the past in fact we need to make sure that we continue to acknowledge and recognize that but turning more across the region more broadly we have spent the United States more than 665 million US dollars across the region since 1993 to focus on UXO the goal there is of course to remove the dangerous items and then help those communities be able to heal and be able to grow but of course the reason that we're able to do so much is because the people of Cambodia the people of Laos and the people of Vietnam they're the ones who are doing this work day in day out of finding and clearing those landmines in the UXO I certainly can say that their dedication is truly inspiring the continued partnership that we have with Cambodia, with Laos, with Vietnam is the reason that the United States has been able to provide such substantial levels of funding to our UXO programs across the region just last year we provided more than 80 million dollars to address UXO issues in these three countries and of course funding matters but it's not the only way that we can have an impact I think it's always important to step back and think that our goal is for people to live safely and let them live in peace let's talk about Cambodia first a little bit more in detail we have been working since 1993 on both UXO and landmine contamination issues over the past 30 years we've invested 190 million dollars to conduct surveys, to clear mines and UXO and also to build national capacity my understanding is Cambodia is aiming to be mine free by 2025 which we know is right around the corner and so the goal is for us to partner together to continue to address war legacy issues including the reduction of UXO contamination but also as the ambassador noted accounting for missing US service members we fund a number of implementing partners we've got friends at the mines advisory group at Halo I know you're out there I'm blinded by the light but you're in the crowd or on screen Cambodia has also quite a significant internationally recognized capacity in the Cambodia Mine Action and Victims Assistance Authority and then also the Cambodia Mine Action Center I think really significant progress for survey and clearance objectives in Cambodia I think the really close cooperation that our two countries have had really enabled us to make a ton of progress over recent years when it comes to POW and MIA accounting in Cambodia we have 42 of 90 Americans that now have been repatriated and identified the work of our defense POW MIA accounting agency enables us to continue to pursue these leads that are associated with the remaining 48 individuals unaccounted for and a big thank you to the Cambodian government for your partnership there with Laos since I'm sharing personal anecdotes I was I guess one of the longest visitors our embassy had had in Laos and I managed to go to four provinces over four days but it was a in particular was a remarkable time to visit to Zinhuang province in Laos which is many of you know the most heavily I guess they face the greatest number of unexploded ordinances across all three countries and it's really underdeveloped province but really remarkable to see the partnership there just a true example of reconciliation in action one of the most interesting parts that I found was the implementing organization who was doing the demining most of their crew to the site we drove about two hours outside of the provincial capitol and they were showing us the work they were doing on a cattle farm and it was nearly all women but adding to that nearly all of the women had worked in the kitchen and eventually worked their way up through the organization to continue to be elevated to positions of more and more authority they ran a very tight ship they ordered me around I followed all the instructions to stay safe but it was really inspiring and then later that afternoon I also got to see a session where they would bring villagers to the school and it was interesting to see the young people teaching the older people about what to do if they were to come across something that looked suspicious but let us more broadly we've spent $355 million to clear and dispose of UXO since we started there back in 1995 we've really tried to increase our funding over the last five years I was really privileged to join our then deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman for her trip to Laos, separate trip where we were able to launch another $45 million to the UXO efforts so that has enabled us to work in five of six provinces where UXO remained to be such an issue we're hoping that we will transition from a mix of survey and clearance to full clearance by the end of 2023 in all five of these provinces and then we expect to more than double the US funded clearance capacity by the end of the year to just over 200 clearance teams in those five provinces I'll say for those of you who've worked in Laos it's also really amazing to see in these small communities the impact of this type of work but to wrap it up in conclusion I think again what's so exciting about working on these three countries is the ability to measure your progress and to see things change before your very eyes Ambassador Nappers heard me share before that I was on the Vietnam desk I guess more than 15 years ago and what's most remarkable is I was part of the effort to shift US policy on Agent Orange where before we weren't undertaking dioxin remediation and now look at where we've come where we're working hand in hand and jointly cleaning up cleaning up the dioxin and continuing to contribute more money so again I hope I hope you all I recognize all the great work all the great conversations over the past two days it's just I hope you share the same enthusiasm it's pretty amazing to be able to look forward and back at the same time and feel optimistic see what else we can achieve by continuing to work closely together I can say that the United States has their eye very focused on Vietnam on Cambodia on Laos and war legacy will continue to be an issue that we will never fully put behind us it will only make our partnership stronger so thank you thank you very much so we actually have an encore and for those of you who were with us this morning in the session on the US-Vietnam youth leadership cohort USIP has been cooperating with Fulbright University Vietnam for the last year on a online youth dialogue project between American and Vietnamese young people and we've invited two of the participants in that youth leadership cohort to join us today and share about their experiences so Tommy N. comes from California and he is a student here in DC so for the last few minutes we have in our dialogue please listen to their experiences and how does this contribute to the future of our relationship that we've just heard the ambassadors and distinguished speakers describe so first hello beautiful people I just want to give a shout out to all the past amazing speakers from masters of diplomats and people doing the hard work and USIP decided to put two most inexperienced people at the very end to close off so very very excited to do that once again my name is Tommy N. I was born in Vietnam but I was made in America my family fled to the United States in the 1990s under the HO program which was a program that allowed South Vietnamese veterans who were reeducated for more than three months refugee status to the United States as a result of that Vietnam became not a place where I grew up and where I formed my identity rather a place of stories from my family stories from American media a little bit from the American education system it was a country that I knew so little about yet felt so connected to all my life my family told me stories to remember to never forget about the atrocities and trauma that they faced I thought remembering was a very straightforward action there's a quote from a professor from USC who was my mentor Viet Thanh Nguyen that there are two battles in war one in the battleground and one in our memories and the war may be long gone way before I was born but the battle still remains in our memory in our souls and spirits and I'm in no position to judge people on how they remember or the history but I feel like I can decide how to remember and for me personally I chose love my country from Vietnam and the United States loved people, loved for trying to remember and understand and that was the reason why I decided to partake in both the youth cohort program for the USIP and also the Fulbright Vietnam program last year as an English teaching assistant and a cultural ambassador all I ever wanted was to see Vietnam through my own eyes not from my parents, not from the lens of war and trauma but through my own experiences and mistakes and challenges and that's exactly what happened the interesting part though was you know when I got in I requested to be down south to get to know South Vietnam and for better or worse I got placed in Lang Son Vietnam which is 10 kilometers from the border of China in a very northern region of Vietnam and I was scared because no one in my family had ever gone to the north obviously my family history and I come from a family that grew up that grew up in Orange County a little Saigon had very strong conceptions about the north but here I am in a rental car on my way to Gifted High School to my aunt in Lang Son and it ended up being the most amazing experience of my life I met people who were so loving, so hospitable who showed me Vietnam that was so different from the movies and the oral histories that I learned about my students were my greatest joy I was one of the first foreigners Americans, native English speakers that they met and they saw me as a science experiment as if an alien abducted one of their friends took them to another world and brought them back that's how different I was to them but they were so amazing so smart and for me I was so hopeful for what Vietnam will be I wasn't the only one in this program who was Vietnamese Americans searching these questions the majority of full breaders were Vietnamese Americans categorized as heritage seeking applicants that wasn't the case 25 years ago that's something that should be celebrated my job was about cultural exchange and education talking about America through my eyes but for that to happen I had to have the hard conversation what that meant to be Vietnamese American it was so interesting because I thought I would have to find a way to be navigating the rules in Vietnam trying to figure out a way to discuss that but my first day in class my students said teacher, teacher tell me all about the Vietnam War are you an anti-communist? and I was like man you're really putting me in a really tough position right now but it's important because that's what we're leading to it's peace that's true peace having these tough conversations that are necessary there's open dialogue and for me that's the most important part in terms of next steps when we talk about reconciliation framework of having an open space and dialogue to include South Vietnamese narratives because South Vietnamese culture is Vietnamese culture from Paris by night to the remittances and support from the diasporic Vietnamese community it's already a part of Vietnam it's not yet in our educational systems I feel like a lot of the conflicts that occur between the diasporic community in Vietnam comes from a lack of understanding so we need open spaces where we can talk and care about our experiences in terms of specifics, following models like Fulbright University for example that encourages an open dialogue to talk about the Vietnamese American the Vietnamese American refugee experience about both people, about the war in a way where we can feel safe and add to the diversity to Vietnam and the United States also has a lot of work to do on their end as well in terms of decentralizing the American experience and advocating for different voices from not only Vietnamese Americans but the Hmong people and the ethnic minorities that served the United States just as patriotically and also an investment into Vietnamese Americans like myself the Fulbright experience changed my life whenever I think of Vietnam I don't think about the war or the trauma I think about my students I think about the karaoke nights when we ate Banh Mi Noon or Banh Chiang or Viet Quay which is like the specialty in Leng Son I think about all those memories but it shouldn't be as exclusive as the Fulbright program or these academic conferences it should be something that requires investment from both the United States and Vietnam to promote Vietnamese language classes for the diaspora community that still struggle with their Vietnamese including myself because I still sound like a baby in Vietnamese to opening up Vietnamese American education centers in Vietnam that incorporate the Vietnamese American history into Vietnam it's a tough battle it's a hard conversation to have for me it's also very fun my whole time in Vietnam talking about these issues every time I had these intense debates with my students of love and understanding and I hope I can continue to do that through the Youth Cohort program and I have been through USIP I'm so excited for what's next Thanks a lot, Tommy Andy? Thank you That was wonderful to hear from you Tommy I really enjoyed that and if I could just first say I was here in May for Peace Con at USIP and I never imagined in my career I would get a chance to sit on this stage later the same year so I'm incredibly honored to be here among such a distinguished panel of speakers who've dedicated so much to the US-Vietnam relationship My story is very different from Tommy's I was born in 2001 I grew up in Boulder, Colorado my mother is American of Italian descent my father is Canadian of Polish-Ukrainian descent my mom grew up in Louisville, Kentucky and had two half brothers that enlisted in the Navy during the Vietnam War neither served on the ground and thankfully returned from the war uninjured so in my childhood discussions about the war didn't figure very prominently whatsoever I learned about the war in bits and pieces and I think in this way our experiences overlap somewhat our knowledge of the Vietnam War is made up of a piecemeal collage of stories, media films, music textbooks and I think this is common among many young people born after reconciliation began without direct experience with the war but despite this detached experience of many young people we have an outsized impact on the outcome of reconciliation to jump back to the quote Tommy mentioned from Viet Tan Lin which I find very influential as well it's true that wars are fought once on the battlefield and again in memory but I think that the population that participates in the war in memory tends to be much larger than that group that ever participated personally so to continue promoting peace in the long term I believe it's essential that we invite and encourage participation in peace building from a generation that doesn't know the war in the way that those who began the reconciliation process do and that's what inspired me to join this cohort youth involvement in reconciliation I believe is especially important now because of the timing as we approach 50 years since the end of the war efforts are ongoing the numbers mentioned to redress the harm done by Agent Orange remove UXO and return remains of those missing in action but the numbers of people with direct experience with the war are diminishing I had the chance to go with the spring to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial down on the National Mall for Memorial Day I was my first experience doing that and the commemoration process what I found was a very dedicated group of veterans and their families who come on an annual basis to pay tribute I also noticed a lot of empty seats and few young faces amidst the crowd so this creates a difficult question for those hoping to involve young people in this reconciliation process which is how do you encourage participation and care about an issue which many young people don't have direct experience with and this kind of set the context for my group's project within the cohort I'm in the memorialization group so when we were initially brainstorming about how to approach this the first thing we asked ourselves is what is the first thing students think about is when they're asked what they know about the other country and between the Vietnamese and American participants and our group the thing we agreed on was that war and its brutality is the first thing that comes to mind for many students who may not have much experience outside the classroom this inspired us to investigate more about how the war has been memorialized the National Monument Audit which records over 2200 different memorials to the Vietnam War here in the US of those only about 189 have mentioned the word peace and none mentioned reconciliation this conflict because of the length and trauma that it's imposed as well as the extent and quality of the reconciliation the process that followed makes us a unique opportunity I think to explore the possibility of shifting our focus on memorializing peace on a large scale as memorials have tremendous power to influence emotions using memorialization to emphasize the remarkable and hard fought gains hard fought nature of the reconciliation process I believe can help strengthen people's commitment to learning more about each other and building meaningful relationships I think it's important to note though that such an approach wouldn't seek to downplay the war but rather contextualize it with the remarkable reconciliation process that's followed this process should not diminish at all the trauma or harm suffered by victims of the war but rather seek to honor them by opening a door to a future of peace and enduring relationships where never again isn't just a saying but a reality of course not all young people will become experts on the history of US-Vietnam relations I'm the furthest thing from that but I believe that increased knowledge about the reconciliation process through physical memorials to peace through educational curriculum art, film and other creative approaches will invite future generations to participate in writing a new chapter in the US-Vietnam relationship whether it means involvement at the community level in travel, business educational exchange like Fulbright so I'm incredibly honored to be a part of this cohort I've learned so much from the experience and I'm grateful to learn about this process thank you thank you both for being here it's amazing thanks to Tommy and Andy and all of our speakers as well as moderators throughout the last day and a half I think you all have put it more eloquently than I can about the meaning of reconciliation the process that we're going through the need to build relationships among people and have a vision of the future and that's what we're aiming to do here at USIP is to bring together diplomats military veterans young people Vietnamese and Southeast Asian Americans to share our own ideas and visions of how we can contribute to building partnerships and peace among our countries so again thanks everyone for being here and we'll see you again next year