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NASHVILLE<\/strong> \u2013 In a life filled with milestones, Irving Locker celebrated a new, unexpected one last week: He became a published songwriter.<\/p>\n One day before his 101st birthday, \u201cIf Freedom Was Free\u201d was released by Big Machine Label Group and CreatiVets, the Nashville-based nonprofit that helps veterans work through their traumas by building something new through the arts.<\/p>\n CreatiVets teamed Locker, a World War II veteran who landed at Utah Beach on D-Day, with Texas singer-songwriter Bart Crow and duo Johnny and Heidi Bulford, who also sing on the track. The chorus \u2013 \u201cIf freedom was free, there wouldn\u2019t be a mountain of metal and men under Normandy\u201d \u2013 includes the message Locker has used in lectures from classrooms to the White House. Freedom, he says, is not free. People should be thankful for it and for those who make it possible.<\/p>\n \u201cI have to talk about things like that,\u201d he says. \u201cI got nothing to gain. But people have to know and appreciate the fact that they\u2019re living because of men who died. It comes from the heart, not the lips.\u201d<\/p>\n Locker, who now lives in The Villages, Florida, said the chance to write a song was an \u201cunbelievable\u201d thrill, one that he never dreamed possible. It means even more to him because music is such an important part of his life.<\/p>\n He said he and his wife of 77 years, Bernice, still go out dancing often \u2013 still doing the jitterbug and the cha-cha as they have for decades.<\/p>\n \u201cYou should see me on the floor even now,\u201d said Locker, adding that he knows how lucky he is to be alive and active when so many other veterans are not.<\/p>\n \u201cTo be very honest with you, I was never conscious of God until the war,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I came so close to dying that I learned how to thank God and use the simple phrase \u2018But for the grace of God go I.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n _____<\/p>\n