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 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 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 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!!

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