THE IMPORTANT THINGS

The Iraq war is into it's 5th year.
As of now almost 4,000 US troops have been killed. 4000 families will never be whole again.

Almost 28,000 of our troops have been injured. 28,000 of our bravest who will never be the same again.
Approx. 1/3 of those injured in Iraq suffer from truamatic brain injuries & thousands of limbs have been sacrificed.

When you sit down to your lovely Christmas dinners and your stockings hung by the fire, remember our boys and girls who will spend Christmas day in the trenches, lonely and homesick and under enemy fire.
Also remember the families left behind to wait, for they too suffer greatly.
Remember them all throughout this holiday season and pray for their safe return to us.

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.