My Memoirs Part 21

While at Bien Hoa, a Vietnamese worker on my crew invited me and a couple of other guys to his daughter’s wedding. Usually we weren’t allowed to go off base, but we got special permission to attend the wedding. Driving off base is not like in most major towns. There are basically no street signs. We had driving directions but got a little lost and arrived the pink Catholic church. The nuns said that they would watch our truck and one of them guided us to the wedding party. We were late for the ceremony but were able to attend the wedding party. There were well over 100 people there. We didn’t want to cause a scene, so we sat in the back corner with a few younger Vietnamese. They brought us many traditional wedding dishes. I am not sure what they were except the red rice. It was boiled rice mixed with duck blood. I think it was for good luck, long life or something like that.

On the next day, I didn’t feel bad, but after lunch while brushing my teeth I noticed my tongue was turning black. It kind of scared me so I went straight to the hospital. After the doctor looked at my tongue, he asked if I had attended a wedding on the day before. It turned out that my two friends went to the hospital in the morning. This was one of my three experiences getting food poisoning. But, the experience of going to a local Vietnamese wedding made it worth it.