I watched the flag pass by one day.
It fluttered in the breeze.
A young Marine saluted it,
and then he stood at ease.
I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud,
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 died at sea?
How many foxholes were soldiers' graves?
No, freedom isn't 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.

 

 

 

On thy grave the rain shall fall from the eyes of a mighty nation! - Thomas William Parsons

 

We come, not to mourn our dead soldiers, but to praise them. - Francis A. Walker

 

Who kept the faith and fought the fight; The glory theirs, the duty ours. - Wallace Bruce

 

The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example. - Benjamin Disraeli

 

I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country. - Nathan Hale

 

The Sun is always shining; our job is to find the Sun not the clouds. - Jay McHugh