Allegiances

Every week at my Rotary Club we open the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance.  And every week one of the members is assigned to lead the group in the Pledge.  They are told that if they want to say a few words about the Pledge then that's okay but to keep it short and get to the Pledge because there is a lot going on at every meeting.  Over the course of the last few years people have research and discovered everything possible to say about the flag, the Pledge, the origins and modifications, the pronunciation and on, and on, and on.  You get the idea.  We literally are coming to the end of the road when it comes to the Pledge factoids.  So a lot of folks now simply stand up and say "please join me in the Pledge".  Which is just fine!  There doesn't need to be some big production.

So you guessed it.  This week was my turn.  So I dutifully visited my friend Google and started looking for something about the Pledge that hadn't been covered.  Something.  Anything.  And in the course of doing that and entering in all kinds of search parameters, I stumbled on the oath of allegiance taken by people who are gaining citizenship.  I had never seen it before and it is pretty interesting.  Here it is:

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God." 

So that got me thinking about the oath of enlistment/re-enlistment that I administered to so many Sailors during my 25 years in the U.S. Navy.  Here it is:

"I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

Although it's been almost 20 years since I retired from the Navy, those words came back to me.  I remembered that in almost every re-enlistment ceremony I took the time to emphasize and remind those listening that as Americans, we don't swear allegiance to a sovereign, a person, a piece of land or anything else besides the idea of living in freedom as set out in the Constitution.  It's a powerful thought that in the course of human history, ours is the only time and we are the only people who have decided that we are living our lives in freedom.  That there was a small band of geniuses (and there's no other word for it) who, 250 years ago threw off the shackles of tyranny and said in our Declaration of Independence that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  

So that thought naturally flowed to the Pledge of Allegiance.

"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."

Every school kid says (or should say) the pledge.  We say it at Rotary.  There are a lot of other places we say it.  And I for one am proud to say it.  We are so lucky to live in this time, in this country, no matter our circumstances.  And I'm honored and humbled that I have been so lucky to have been born in this greatest experiment in freedom in the history of mankind.

So that's what I told them.  And...it was a big hit!