Freedom Js Not Free

Freedom is not Free

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 mother's tears?

How many pilot's planes shot down?

How many died at sea?

How many foxholes were soldier's 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 wonder just how many imes

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.

                                   ~ Kelly Strong