wanted to post this

Freedom Is Not Free by Major Kelly Strong

I watched the flag pass by one day, it fluttered in the breeze,

A young man in uniform 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 the crowd.

I thought how many men like him had fallen through the years?

How many died on foreign soil?

How many mother's tears?

How many pilots' planes shot down?

How many died at sea?

How many foxholes were soldiers' 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 draped a coffin of a brother or a friend.

I thought of all the children, of 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 is not free.

Toy Cannon

When he was five, his mother
bought him a toy cannon,
And he played war with his friends,
His father was proud of his war efforts.

When he was six, he broke the toy cannon,
And cried in his room all day.
His father told him big boys don't cry,
So he choked back the tears and went on with his life.

When he was ten, his mother bought
him a machine gun,
That sounded like the real ones,
All his friends had guns, and they
played war in the backyard
Under the watchful eyes of their proud parents.

When he was thirteen, his father told him
To throw away the machine gun,
Because big boys don't play with guns.
He wanted to cry, but remembered
What his father had told him
when he was young.

When he was eighteen, Uncle Sam
bought hiim a rifle,
And sent him off to war,
So he went to war, wondering about
What his father had told him when
he was young.

When his parents got the letter,
his father cried.

-Ron MacLean-




(God Bless the foot soldiers as we prepare for the second part of this war)

Ouch.

Those were great poems, but the second one choked me up.

Thank you.