You stand there listening
But there's nothing you can hear.
The stillness is so loud
You feel a gnawing kind of fear.
As you look all around, as far as the eye can see,
It's the great land of Alaska in the land of the brave and free.
Yes, Alaska is the place I live, and I love it every bit.
But I wouldn't trade my savior's love if you gave me all of it.
Hal Farrar's words close Andrew Arthur Breese's Living Free, a short film about life in Alaska that features the 90-year-old military veteran. Farrar is a musician and poet who served in World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1926, Farrar joined the Navy at age 17, according to this Alaska Coast Guard blog post. He served in the South Pacific during World War II and later in California, where he transferred from the Navy to the Coast Guard.
Farrar retired in 1967 after 23 years of active military duty and took up music and poetry. "His desire now," according to a bio page at the American Christian Music Association, "is to travel Alaska and the Lower 48 (States of America) in his private plane, singing and sharing his songs, and poems that he has written."
