Notable Events From the Wedding

    You know how weddings are.  There is just so MUCH going on, it's hard in retrospect to remember every little detail.  Two things really stand out for me.
     I am not sure why I'm so fascinated with the involvement that some of my loved ones had in the Vietnam War.  Scott's refusal to go with me to Cambodia had started out appearing to me like something whimsical, but I wound up criticizing myself for being so insensitive to the effects the war had on him.  He was literally SCARED for me while I was there, and no amount of reassurances about the current peaceful state of affairs could change that.  We WERE only a few miles from the Vietnam border, and Jack told me that the central highlands of Vietnam were very similar to where we were in the hills of Mondulkiri.  Scott later said maybe that had been at one time, but a countryside that's been totally defoliated has a somewhat different feel to it.  Oh.
    But at the WEDDING, Jack showed me some bomb craters.  BOMB craters!  My brother Paul had already told me that he recalled being involved in heavy bombing of that area in Cambodia when he was a B-52 pilot during the war.  He had given me a soft sell job, joking that it would be a little ironic if I got blown up by unexploded ordinance he had left there (he has SUCH a sense of humor, that brother of mine!)
    THIS, however, was uncomfortably real.  The craters were about 20 feet long by 12 feet wide, and I'd say about 10 feet or so deep.  The "locals" had made great use of them by planting gardens in the bottom, where water is plentiful even in the dry season.  Paul said he was happy to have given them some agricultural assistance.
     There was a gentleman at the reception who remembered the war well.  He is a member of the Bunong tribe who had lived in the same area for at least 100's of years.  When the bombing came, the tribe moved several miles west to get out of the way.  But as soon as it stopped, they moved back and have lived there ever since.  I was amazed at the equanimity with which he spoke about this--no sign of anger, resentment, or bitterness (unlike my husband). 
     I was also amazed at how well Jack could communicate in native Bunong language.  Here, as Becca looks on, he is conversing with "Granny" about stuff, I don't know what.

     On a much happier note,  the other notable event was meeting the father of the bride.  Pleasant guy . . . . . . .  something oddly familiar about his garb . . . . . why, holy ghost of Vince Lombardi!  He IS wearing a Green Bay Packer Hall of Fame tee shirt.  Check it out!  GO PACK GO!!!