| 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 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.
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