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>I watched the flag pass by one day,
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>It fluttered in the breeze.
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>A young Marine saluted it,
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>And then he stood at ease..
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>I looked at him in uniform
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>So young, so tall, so proud,
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>With hair cut square and eyes alert
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>He'd stand out in any crowd.
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>I thought how many men like him
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>Had fallen through the years.
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>How many died on foreign soil
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>How many mothers' tears?
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>How many pilots' planes shot down?
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>How many died at sea
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>How many foxholes were soldiers' graves?
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>No, freedom isn't free.
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>I heard the sound of Taps one night,
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>When everything was still,
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>I listened to the bugler play
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>And felt a sudden chill.
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>I wondered just how many times
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>That Taps had meant "Amen,"
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>When a flag had draped a coffin.
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>Of a brother or a friend.
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>I thought of all the children,
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>Of the mothers and the wives,
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>Of fathers, sons and husbands
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>With interrupted lives.
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>I thought about a graveyard
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>At the bottom of the sea
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>Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
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>No, freedom isn't free.
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>Enjoy Your Freedom and God Bless Our Troops !
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>Show Your Support Send This Page Along Today
>