UNCLE BEN AND THE TUNNEL RAT

I was down in a tunnel 
On Ho Chi Minh trail
When I saw Uncle Ben
And I started to wail

I was looking for a Gook
When I spotted the Spook
Instead of NVA rice
I found southern spice

Ben said hello
I've been lost oh! so long
My eyes are slanting
And my nails grow long

From out of my cabin
I've traveled so far
To be found by a grunt
In the ground where we are

So please take me home
Where the Buffalo roam
And the skies are not cloudy all day

I'm sick of the smell
In these tunnels of hell
Take me back to American Pie

Marko Whiteley

For my good friend Toby Burnett
God grant us the strength to laugh our way home together

I met this veteran while treating combat veterans from all the services. The subject of this poem was an Army tunnel rat who was my client years ago and now a dear friend and comrade. When he told me he found a box of Uncle Ben's Rice in a Vietnamese tunnel I grabbed my notebook and wrote this.