...
One morni n' at breakfast I said to my wife
"We've been e v'rywhere once and some places twice."
A s I had another helping of country ham she said
"We ain't never been to Vietnam
And there's a bunch of our boys over there."
So we went to the Orient Saigon.
Well we got a b ig welcome when we drove in
To the gates of a place that they call Long Ben.
We check ed in and ev'rything got kind of quiet.
But a soldie r boy said "Just wait till tonight.
Things get noisy things start happenin'.
Big bad firecra ckers."
Well that night w e did about four shows for the boys
And they were livin' it u p with a whole lot of noise.
We did o ur last song for the night
And we crawled into bed for some peace and quiet.
But things weren't peaceful and things weren't quiet.
Things were scar y.
Well for a few min utes June never said one word
And I t hought at first that she hadn't heard.
Then a shell exploded not two miles away.
She sat u p in bed and I heard her say
"What was that?" I s aid "That was a shell or a bomb."
She said "I'm scared." I said "Me too".
Well all night long that noise kept on
And the sound would chill you right to the bone.
The bulle ts and the bombs and the mortar shells
Shook our bed ev'ry time one fell and it never let up.
It was gonna get worse before it got any better.
Well when the sun came up the noise died down.
We got a few min utes sleep and we were sleepin' sound.
Then a soldier knocked on our door and said
Last night they brought in 7 dead and 14 wounded.
And would we come down to the base hospital and see the boys. Yeah.
So we went t o the hospital ward by day
And ev'ry night we were singin' away.
Then the shells and the bombs till dawn again
And the helicop ters brought in the wounded men.
N ight after night day after day comin' an d goin'.
So we sadly sang for them our last song
And reluctantly we said "So long."
We did our best to let 'em know that we care
For ev'ry last one of 'em that's over there.
Wether we belo ng over there or not
Somebody over here loves 'e m and needs 'em.
Well now that's ab out all that there is to tell
About that l ittle trip into livin' hell.
And if I ever go back over there anymore
I hope there's none of our boys there for me to sing for.
I hope that war is over with
And they all come back home to stay in peace.
