Freedom Isn’t Free – Honoring Colonel Jerry Driscoll (Unpublished)
(Spoken)
Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
[For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever.]
Amen.
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
I went to the United States Air Force Academy,
Into pilot training that’s where I got my wings,
That’s where I learned survival, trudging through the snow,
POW training, little did I know,
That soon I would be captured after being shot down,
On my hundredth twelfth mission my feet hit the ground,
Standing up realizing, “My God, here I am!”,
Captured by local farmers, in North Vietnam.
Freedom, freedom isn’t free.
For two thousand, four hundred, eighty-five days,
Six years, ten months I was forced to stay,
The bad guys started beating me up so I might tell,
Them something I’d be sorry for later on as well.
Freedom, freedom isn’t free!
So, I had to keep it simple, or else might be dead,
When I started talking, they wrote down all I said,
Most of what I told them was nothing more than lies,
Had to give the same answer to the same question each time.
Freedom, freedom isn’t free!
For two years listed as MIA,
Missing In Action, until I was on the front page,
Of the Chicago Daily being marched down the street,
By bayonet through an angry mob of North Vietnamese.
Freedom, freedom isn’t free!
On the back wall of each building, each senior man would pound,
On Sunday bowed our heads and said the Lord’s Prayer out loud,
Then said the Pledge of Allegiance, to the east we faced,
The shortest distance to the United States.
Freedom, freedom isn’t free!
Faith in God, faith in country, faith in our buddies,
Fellow Prisoners’ of War kept me from going crazy,
Happiness is a doorknob on the inside of the door.
Freedom isn’t free for a prisoner of war
Freedom, freedom isn’t free!
Words & Music by Larry Long
Copyright Larry Long Publishing 2015 / BMI
Lyrics collectively written with Lauren Hansen 4th Grade Class,
Birchview Elementary School, Wayzata, Minnesota.
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