Poem from e-mail

Gato_Solo

Out-freaking-standing OTC member
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 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.
 
That reminded me of listening to taps
everyday at sunset when the flag was lowered
when I worked the on base gas station in highschool.

Or holding in my hands the triangle folded flag
that was for my uncle who I'm named for
who is buried in France.
 
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