FREEDOM ISN'T 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,
     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.

     By Ron Lago