This weekend, we celebrate one of my favorite holidays – Memorial Day. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but Memorial Day means more to me

than just a holiday and a long weekend. It

gives me a chance to reflect on the men and women who gave their lives – the ultimate sacrifice – for the freedoms we all enjoy.

As we remember them, let us not forget all those now serving in the military, protecting our free country.

Freedom is not free and can best be explained in the following poem written by Cadet Major Kelly Strong, Air Force Junior ROTC, Homestead Senior High School, Homestead, Florida, 1988:

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 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.

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.

If you have any questions or comments, please write to Get High on Life, P.O. Drawer U, Reserve, LA 70084, call (985) 652-8477, or e-mail: hkeller@comcast.net.