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.
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 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
Enjoy Your Freedom
and
God Bless Our Troops.