premise: Former congressman Douglas "Pete" Peterson, who spent six and half years in a Vietnamese prison camp, was sworn in Tuesday as Washington's first ambassador to Hanoi.
  Peterson took the oath of office at a State Department ceremony attended by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a US official said.
  He is scheduled to arrive in Hanoi on May 9.
  Peterson's confirmation "sends a very strong message that it is important to put the war behind us and get on with a friendly relationship," State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said.
  Burns said the new ambassador will "try to heal the wounds" of the Vietnam War that ended in communist victory in 1975. The conflict claimed the lives of about three million Vietnamese and nearly 60,000 Americans.
   What happened at the end of the war that makes it more difficult to heal the wounds of the war?
hypothesis: arrive in Hanoi