4th of JULY: FREEDOM ISN'T FREE

On this day, perhaps the greatest of all our American holidays, let us not forget the reason we celebrate. Many have died or suffered great pain so that we might gather round the bar-b-que pit, light fireworks and shoot off our mouths.

We must never forget who deserves the credit for the freedoms we enjoy and for which we should be eternally grateful. Whether you are for or against “the war”…stand together in support of our troops.

God bless our Military who are protecting our Country for our freedom. And may God continue to bless America.

“Freedom Isn’t Free”
--author unknown

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.