Freedom is not free

I watched our 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, a patriot in the crowd.

I thought, how many men like him had fallen through the years,

How many dies on foreign soil? How many mother's tears?

How many pilot's planes shot down? How many died at sea?

How many fox holes a soldiers grave? "Freedom is not free!"

I heard the "Last Post" sound one night, when everything was still,

I listened to the bugler play and felt a sudden chill.

I wondered just how many times the "Last Post" meant "Amen",

When our flag had draped a casket of a brother or a friend.

I thought of all the children, of mothers and of wives,

Of father's, sons and husbands, with interrupted lives.

I thought about the grave yard at the bottom of the sea,

And our "Unknown Soldier" in Ottawa, "Freedom is not free!"