I thought it would be appropriate to re-post this brief music-video tribute to WWII veterans. It really helped bring home the meaning of the phrase, "the price of freedom."
http://www.managedmusic.com/Music/PlayBeforeYouGo.php
A lot of young soldiers - kids in their teens and twenties - were KIA, physically maimed for life, and witness to unspeakable horrors during WWII. That is the cost of freedom. Look at the privileges that today's youth enjoy. It was paid for - dearly - by the sacrifice of their grandparents' generation.
And as one final thought. I recently saw a picture of 19 year old Stevie Hinton, Jr. flying a P-51 the other day, and thought, "he is way too young to be flying that!" And then I remembered that almost all of the pilots who fought and died in Mustangs were the same age as Stevie.