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Freedom Is Not Free
By LCDR Kelly Strong, USCG - Copyright
1981
I watched the flag pass by one day,
It
fluttered in the breeze.
A young Service man 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.
This story was contributed: LCDR Kelly
Strong, USCG |
