Freedom Isn't Free

Dear Jack,

For the last year and a half, I have really been process the idea that "freedom isn't free." I have thought long and hard about your Uncle James and the price he paid for not only American freedom, but freedom from terrorism and tyranny in Afghanistan as well.

This Memorial Day, I came to a new understanding of that idea. Uncle James certainly paid the blood price for freedom. But the rest of us, the rest of the Nolen and Roberts families, as well as countless friends, are paying a different kind of price. Your Aunt Rachel pays not only in the loss of her soul mate, but also in the price of being a single mother all over again. Your cousins Will and Jamie pay with the loss of a father in their daily lives. Your Gram and your Grandpa pay in ways that as a parent I cannot even fathom. Your dad and Uncle Jonathan pay in the loss of a brother. Freedom isn't free and it isn't just Uncle James who paid. We all did and do. And in ways that you won't even realize, you will bear a small part of that balance as well.

Freedom Is Not Free

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 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;

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 is not Free!
-- Kelly Strong

I love you so much, sweet boy, and I have to remember that every single soldier lost has been some mother's son or daughter. What a price. What sweet freedom.

Love,
Mom