Pete Seeger – Talking Ben Tre lyrics

Tell you all a story from across the sea
'Bout a little town they call Ben Tre
Set on a river bank peaceful as you please
Till it got caught between two ideologies
Confrontation, western civilization at stake

Down by the river came a-marching along
The local chapter of the Viet Cong
Went into towns with their flags a-wavin'
It was easy to see that the town needed savin'
They walked into town like they lived there

Our boys saw what was going on
So they called up the general on the telephone
Said, "Which ones are the enemy? We can't tell
Said, "I don't know either, blow 'em all to hell"
Don't mater much anyway, once you've seen one you've seen 'em all

The general watched the fighting about all day
Said, "We've got to save that town some way
It's time for a humanitarian act
We'll call in a full scale bombing attack"
Napalm big bombs real pretty just like the 4th of July

The houses burned the whole day long
Boy, we really cooked them Viet Cong
And we burned about two thousand others
But they were just old folks, children and mothers
Good thing we saved 'emsome of them kids
Might've grown up to be communists

When the smoke cleared away the town was clean
No Viet Cong were to be seen
Just 30, 000 grateful friends glad we did right
Each one looking for a place to spend the night
Not much to do when your house is burned down
Guess they stood around singing the Star Spangled Banner