I watched the flag pass by one
day...It futtered in the breeze...
A young Marine saluted it, and
then stood at ease...
I looked at him in uniform ...So
young, so tall, so proud...
With hair cut square and eyes
alert...He'd stand out in any crowd..
I thought how many men like him,
Had fallen through the years...
How many died on foreign soil?
How many Mothers' tears?
How many Pilots' planes shot
down? How many foxholes  soldiers'
graves???
 
No freedom is not free...
 
I heard the sound of taps one
night, when everything was still...
I listened to the bugler play,and
felt a sudden chill...
I wondered just how many times,
that taps had meant  "Amen"...
When a flag had draped a coffin
of a brother or a friend...
I thought of all the children, of
the mothers and the wives,
of fathers, sons and husbands
with interrupted lives...
I thought about a graveyard at
the bottom of the sea...
Of unmarked graves in Arlington...
 
No, freedom isn't free!!!