FREEDOM ISN'T FREE

For the next several day I will be focusing on the 233rd Anniversary of the birth of a new nation...The United States of America. Articles of interest and historical value will be posted to remind us of the event that took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1776. I hope that you will find them informative.

FREEDOM IS NOT 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.
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 Mother's tears?
How many pilots planes shot down? How many foxholes were soldiers grave?
No, FREEDOM IS NOT FREE!

I heard the sound of tapes 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 Friend.
I thought of all the children, of Mothers, Daughters and Wives. of Fathers
Sons and Husbands with interrupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard of unmarked graves in Arlington.

No, FREEDOM IS NOT FREE!

Written by Cadet Major Kelly Strong, Air Force Junior ROTC - 1988
Homeland Senior High School
Homestead, Florida