Friday, June 26, 2009

Thoughts for July 4th

Independence is Costly Won...

Eagle
Eagle in Maymont Park.

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.

--Freedom is Not Free by Kelly Strong.
Quoted by Greg Crosby [click to read].

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