Many Americans will be doing their annual family gathering to BBQ and all other sorts of activities this Memorial day. The one thing that to many Americans will not be doing is stopping for atleast a minute or two to honor those who died serving this country so that you and I may have the freedom afforded us.

 To my heart that is saddening. My Father served this country in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam war. I've heard the countless horror stories of what war is like. I feel very blessed and fourtunate that my father was able to return home from such a horrible circumstance. Though he wasn't well recieved from the masses when he did. I know in my heart that what he and those that he served with all had one purpose. That is America though not perfect is the greatest country for any one individual and even more a family can live. Live with the most freedom one can have because they lost limbs and even their lives to be sure that it remained that way.

 So please all my friends here if for even one minute stop and give thanks and prayers to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for all us Americans. Freedom isn't free at all.

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,
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.