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 wondered how many men like him
Have fallen through the years?
How many died on foreign soil?
How many Mother's 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
Taps had meant "Amen"
When a flag had covered 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

And I thought about the graveyard
At the bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington

No, Freedom is not Free.