We must never forget who gets the credit for the freedoms we have,
Of which we should be eternally grateful.

I watched the flag pass by one day.
It fluttered in the breeze.
A young soldier 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!

Of all the gifts you could give a U.S. Soldier, prayer is the very best one.