A Salute to Our Veterans

Richard Tramm, Marines
Bradley Pigage, Coast Guard
Rick Parker, Navy
Kelley Golden, Navy
Allan Jaster, Army
Lisa Jaster, Army
Shawn Kirk, Air Force
Michelle LeBlanc, Air Force
Stephen Johnson, Marines
Steve Alexander
Keith Garule, Navy
Clint Yates, Navy
Will Featherston, Army
Bill Gause, Navy

Freedom Isn’t Free

by Kelly Strong

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.