Happy Independence Day, America

(author unknown)

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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Staff Sgt. John Beale Died So You Would Be Free Today