A young airman saluted it, and then stood at ease.

I looked at him in uniform so young, so tall, so proud

with hair cut short 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 in foreign lands, how many mother's tears?

How many pilots planes shot down? How many died at sea?

How many foxholes were soldier's graves? No FREEDOM IS NOT 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 covered a coffin of a brother or a friend.

I thought of all the children, of the mothers, of the wives; of the fathers, sons and husbands with interrupted lives.

I thought about the graveyards at the bottom of the seas of unmarked graves in Arlington: No, freedom is NOT FREE."

-Author Unknown