Happy INDEPENDENCE Day!
July 4, 2012 ·
We must never forget who gets the credit for the freedom we have… of which we should be eternally grateful.
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 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 died at sea?
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 means ‘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!
When you read this, please stop for a moment and think long and hard of our service men and women. Reach out and thank them in any way you can.
Happy 4th of July — have fun, but most of all be safe!
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