FREEDOM IS NOT FREE                BACK

I watched the flags 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 shores?
How many mothers´ tears?
How many pilots´ planes shot down?
How many died at sea?
How many foxholes were soldiers´ graves?
No, freedom is not free.

I heard the sounds of taps one night,
when everything was still.
I listened to the buglar play
and felt a sudden chill.
I wondered how many times
that taps had meant “Amen”
when a flag had draped the coffin
of a soldier and a friend.

I thought of all the children,
of the mothers and the wives
of fathers, sons, and husbands,
all with interrupted lives.

I thought about a graveyard
at the bottom of the sea,
and all the graves at Arlington.
No, freedom is not free.

Mason (Mickey) H. Dorsey

BACK