by Maj. Kelly Strong

I watched the flag pass by one day,
it fluttered in the breeze,
A young man in uniform 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 the 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 is not 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 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 is not free.