Freedom Isn't Free

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

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!!

...Cadet Major Kelly Strong
Air Force Junior ROTC

Freedom Isn't Free
Chaplain Steve Janke
483d SPS, Cam Ranh Bay,
K-9, 70-71

They say I'm short and homeward bound.
Then why is there no happiness found?
One long year here will soon be ore
And I'll walk to that Freedom Bird door.
But I can’t relax--no letting down why?
Because to let down may mean to die.
It's like a dream, can it really be?
everyone cheers as we fly by.

But thinking of friends below just makes me sigh.
God be with you, I know your fears
I didn't know but the next time I see you
will be over twenty years.

The plane gets me home and I kiss the ground.
The family I left is the same one I found.
We embrace and hug and cannot separate
The difference between life and death is only fate.

When I was there I dreamed of home
Now I am here but how my mind does roam.

When I was young I was taught in school
That freedom was not free and the golden rule.

I know them both but one came hard.
To learn it I had to leave my own back yard.

http://www.vspa.com/crb-chaplain-janke-freedom-isnt-free-1970.htm