https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q65KZIqay4E

 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 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 , sister 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.