A new start: Ex-foes Son and Jensen are now biker buddies. WORLD T.E.A.M. SPORT

Just one sniff of the air--a humid haze filtering through the bus window--and Bob Connors knew he was back in Vietnam. An ex-U.S. Air Force sergeant, Connors was returning to his former battleground to join 43 other vets, both American and Vietnamese, for a grueling 1,900-km bicycle ride along the country's sinuous spine. There to chronicle this emotional journey was Peter Gilbert, an American filmmaker who won acclaim for his gritty basketball documentary Hoop Dreams.

Culled from 250 hours of footage, Vietnam Long Time Coming proves more powerful than other films about the country precisely because it is not a war movie. Vietnam, the documentary is out to show, is a nation, not a war. There are no stills of the massacre at My Lai or grainy footage of rumbling tanks. Instead, Gilbert lets Vietnam resonate through its lush landscape. It has a placid beauty that many American veterans are noticing for the first time: when they were last here, these same muddy paddy fields were studded with land mines. Nor does Gilbert let the homecoming drown in sentimentality. American servicemen who killed Vietnamese toddlers in the name of war are exposed raw and unnerved as smiling youngsters welcome them back three decades later. "When we arrived in Hanoi we were met by young ladies carrying flowers," notes vet Bob Maras. "When I returned to the United States 31 years ago I was met with anger and people who spat on me."

The documentary's most powerful moments are set on the road, as veterans--some blind, some amputees, others just tubby from too many beers and burgers--barrel down Highway One from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. Among this crew are Dan Jensen and Tran Son, slender mirror images of each other--one blond and American, the other dark-haired and Vietnamese. Both are avid marathoners, and both lost legs as reluctant conscripts in an unpopular war. Their impromptu friendship is free of the psychoanalysis that occasionally bogs the film down. Because they do not speak the same language, they communicate not by dissecting post-traumatic stress disorder, but by trading orthopedic equipment. Such interaction between former enemies gives the documentary an unscripted buzz. The pastoral scenes may be beautiful, but Jensen and Son's laughter makes the film sparkle. "From their friendship comes redemption," says Steve Whisnant, executive director of World T.E.A.M. Sport, the nonprofit group that organized the trip as one of many challenging events which bring together able-bodied and disabled athletes. "It made two years of red tape worth it."

Jensen and Son's story continues after the 16-day journey. In an evocative epilogue, Son travels to Jensen's native Sioux Falls to receive a replacement for his outdated prosthetic limb. Soon, the pair are pounding the South Dakota landscape to practice for the 1998 New York City Marathon. They will compete in October, gulping for breath as they cross the finish line together. Somewhere between Hanoi, Sioux Falls and Central Park the air has finally cleared.