In the column to the right is a poem written by an ROTC student in 1988.
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As
we drew to the end of the day, we once again invited the Olympia Marine
Corps League to retire the flag of our Nation. During this process of the
lowering and the folding of the flag a narrator read for us the historical
meaning of each fold of the flag. In the column to the right is a poem written by an ROTC student in 1988. |
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I
watched the flag pass by one day. It fluttered in the breeze A young Marine saluted it, and then stood at ease. |
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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. |
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How
many died on foreign soil? How many mother's tears? How many pilot's planes' shot down? How many died at sea? |
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How
many foxholes were soldier's 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. |
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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 the fathers, sons and husbands with interrupted lives. |
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I
thought about a graveyard at the bottom of the sea, of unmarked graves in
Arlington. No freedom is not free. Cadet Major Kelly Strong Air Force Junior ROTC Homestead Senior High School Homestead, Florida 1988 |
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Mustangs West has several members in our club who are veterans of the military, going back as far as WWII, as well as Korea, Viet Nam, and the Gulf war and at the time of this show, one club member who was in Afghanistan serving in the government building phase there. This page is for all of our military who have made it possible for us to live in a country that allows us our freedom of speech, in private as well as in public. Thank you all past, present and future members of the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force and Marine Corps. We owe you our freedom, and we thank you for it. |
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