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Freedom is not Free
(copied)
Cadet Major Kelly Strong
Homestead Senior High School, Fl
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 strong, so tall, so proud,
with his haircut square and his 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 mant 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 the mothers and the wives,
Of the fathers, sons, and husbands
with interupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea
and unmarked graves in Arlington.
No Freedom is Not Free !
1988 year