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.
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.

thank you

No Freedom is not Free..... Just because someone returns to stateside without a visible wound doesn't necessarily mean that this brave American isn't carrying a far heavier wound inside where no one can see it. God bless America and God bless out Troops ...One and All.. Thank you for y our service and Sacrifice....


Thank you for posting,,,,,

Thank you for that.

Thank you. Very timely as Australia has lost another fine soldier.

Thank you for that.

so many unseeable injuries--freedom is not free

True so true...crafty_linda_b

That's so true. I worked with a man who was a reporter at our local newspaper. He served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. He told me several times that he never got more than 2 hours of sleep a night because of flashbacks of things he saw during those years. Thanks to all of those who have so unselfishly fought to preserve our freedom. The poem really says it all.

Thank you for the poem. So appropriate on this 4th of July. GOD BLESS AMERICA. OUR HOME OF THE FREE THANKS TO THE BRAVE.