| I Watched Our 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 Stood Out In The 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 Soldiers' Graves?
And Never To Be Found!
I Heard The Sound Of Taps One Day
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 Draped Coffin Held
A Brother Or A Friend
I Thought Of All The Children
The Mothers And The Wives
Of Fathers, Sons And Husbands
Of Interrupted Lives
I Thought About A Graveyard
At The Bottom Of The Sea
Of Unmarked Graves In Arlington
No, Freedom Isn't Free!
Copyright 1981 Kelly Strong, CDR, USCG (RET)
KellyStrong@aol.com Our Thanks for Permission from CDR Strong to Reprint this Fine Poem to Honor those who Served Our Country! This Poem was written by CDR Strong, while still in High School, to honor his Father, who Served 2 Tours in Vietnam! 
Click Memorial Above For "Taps" | 
