I saw 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 so many men like him
had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil?
How many monther's 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
And all the graves in Arlington.
One can bet that Freedom
really cannot be free.

~Author Unknown~