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AUGUST 6, 2011: 31 lost, 31 unwanted visits, 31 doors receive that
dreaded knock, 31 families with shattered hearts, 31 pairs of boots lined up with rifles and dog tags and helmets, 31 comrades
remembered and grieved for, 31 funeral services, 31 names on newly made grave markers, 31 empty places at the table, 31 souls
who gave all, whose lives leave a void, so let's take 31 seconds to re-post this and pause to reflect on such a sacrifice
as 31 gone forever.
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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 pilots' planes shot down? How many foxholes were soldiers' graves? I heard the sound of "Taps"
one night, When everything was still. I
listened to the bugler play 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 I thought about a graveyard At
the bottom of the sea, Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
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