Author
Unknown
I watched the flag pass by one day.
It fluttered in the breeze
A young soldier 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 foxholes were soldiers' graves?
No Freedom isn't free
The
bugler played Last Post one night,
When everything was still.
I listened to the bugler play,
And felt a sudden chill.
I
wonder just how many times
The Last Post 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 Piccardy…
No
-- Freedom isn't free!