Freedom Is Not Free

Lagu lama ini termasuk dalam daftar lagu favoritku. Menurut aku, lirik yang terkandung di dalamnya merupakan sisi lain di balik sebuah pengabdian seorang prajurit kepada negaranya. Sisi lain yang jarang ditampilkan terutama pada saat perang berkecamuk. Yeah, this is the reality. Para prajurit itu juga seseorang yang hidup berdampingan dengan manusia lainnya. Mereka memiliki keluarga, teman-teman, anak-anak, dan para kerabat  yang lain. Di balik sosok mereka yang kokoh bagai sebuah menara, mereka adalah manusia biasa....

Seringkali mereka membayar dengan harga yang mahal demi sebuah kemerdekaan. Freedom is not free. Begitulah kalimat yang pantas untuk mereka.

Freedom Is Not Free

By LCDR Kelly Strong, USCG - copyright 1981

I watched the flag pass by one day,

it fluttered in the breeze.

A young Service man 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.