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 stood out in any crowd.

I thought how many men like him
had falled 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 fox holes were soldiers' graves?
No .. freedom is not free.

I heard Taps sound one night
when everything was still.
I listened to the bugle 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 the fathers, sons, and husbands,
with interrupted lives.

I thought about a graveyard
at the bottom of the sea,
of unmarked graves at Arlington.

No .. freedom is not free !!

Poor is the Nation who has no heros ...

Shameful ... the one who, having them ... forgets !