Freedom Is Not Free (Copied)

nunn

~No, Freedom is Not Free~

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 mother's tears?

How many pilot's planes shot down?

How many died at sea?

How many foxholes - soldiers graves?

No, freedom is not 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 covered a casket

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 the graveyard,

At the bottom of the sea,

Of all the graves in Arlington,

No -- Freedom Is Not Free!

~author unknown~



SIG pistol armorer/FFL Dealer/Full time Peace Officer, Moderator of General Discussion Board on Gunbroker. Visit www.gunbroker.com, the best gun auction site on the Net! Email davidnunn@texoma.net

RockinU

Gives me chills, keeps all that we have to be grateful for in the forefront.

idsman75

Nunn--Thank you. That's about all that comes to my mind right now. Not even those words would be able to make it to my tongue.

Mom and Dad took me to the Minnesota Veterans Home once a month EVERY month when I was growing up. The smell of rancid urine filled the air and I didn't want to be there. We made a point to visit with someone whose family had dropped them off there and had forgotten about them. There was an old man who carried a small pouch in his pocket. He was always holding that pouch. This man was a surgeon during WWII. One day he opened that pouch and he poured the contents into my hand. My small hand was soon filled with bullets that he had pulled from wounded and dead soldiers. It had a small impact on me then. The memory silences me and humbles me every time I am reminded of it. Those guys didn't fight because they had some phenomenal Montgomery GI Bill to spend at the end of their term of service. They didn't fight because they got some "high tech" training that would make them a fortune when they became a civilian again. They didn't fight because they were going to get 30 days of paid vacation every year. They fought because it was their duty and they fought because they didn't want the threat of tyranny to reach the borders of their home town.

Thanks Nunn. Those are the only words that my mind can muster right now.

SSG idsman75, U.S. ARMY

offeror

What the gun controllers don't realize is that us gun owners and supporters of the Second Amendment's right of citizens to keep and bear arms have no less noble sentiments or convictions in our hearts when it comes to defending everything that's good about this country.

I'd like to think the more reasonable of the 2nd Amendment haters would fear us less if they could x-ray our souls.

- Life NRA Member
If dishonorable men shoot unarmed men with army guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and not by general deprivation of constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878

idsman75

I don't think they fear us. It is a political issue that they don't actually believe in but helps polarize the two sides of the issue so they know who they can count on for votes. They don't fear us. They hate us. If we could x-ray their souls we would find darkness.

SSG idsman75, U.S. ARMY