No, Freedom isn't free

This is my favorite Memorial Day poem. I plan to read it as part of my remarks at our community Memorial Day Service.

Freedom Isn't Free

By Kelly Strong, Commander, U.S. Coast Guard


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 look 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 wondered how many men like him
Had fallen through the years,
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mother's tears?

How many pilot's planes shot down?
How many died at sea?
How many foxholes were soldier's 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,
Taps had meant "amen".
When a flag had covered 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.

And I thought about a graveyard,
At the bottom of the sea,
Of unmarked graves in Arlington,
No freedom isn't free.