What form of the Pledge of Allegiance did you learn?

[dixiegrrrrl]

Finish the pledge:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands,
one nation, _____________________________________________

I am watching school children from 1940 give the pledge and it is different from the one I remember 10 years later.

[Poll_Blind]

1. "under god, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all." But God didn't come into the picture...

...until the 50's, IIRC.

PB

[BainsBane]

11. Same here. NT

[Lugnut]

49. That's the one I learned.

The Under God part was added in the 50s.

[spanone]

2. they added...'under God'

Addition of "under God"
Louis A. Bowman (1872–1959), an attorney from Illinois, was the first to initiate the addition of "under God" to the Pledge. The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution gave him an Award of Merit as the originator of this idea.[13][14] He spent his adult life in the Chicago area and was Chaplain of the Illinois Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. At a meeting on February 12, 1948,[13] Lincoln's Birthday, he led the Society in swearing the Pledge with two words added, "under God." He stated that the words came from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Though not all manuscript versions of the Gettysburg Address contain the words "under God", all the reporters' transcripts of the speech as delivered do, as perhaps Lincoln may have deviated from his prepared text and inserted the phrase when he said "that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom." Bowman repeated his revised version of the Pledge at other meetings.[13]

In 1951, the Knights of Columbus, the world's largest Catholic fraternal service organization, also began including the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.[15] In New York City, on April 30, 1951, the Board of Directors of the Knights of Columbus adopted a resolution to amend the text of their Pledge of Allegiance at the opening of each of the meetings of the 800 Fourth Degree Assemblies of the Knights of Columbus by addition of the words "under God" after the words "one nation." Over the next two years, the idea spread throughout Knights of Columbus organizations nationwide. On August 21, 1952, the Supreme Council of the Knights of Columbus at its annual meeting adopted a resolution urging that the change be made universal and copies of this resolution were sent to the President, the Vice President (as Presiding Officer of the Senate) and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The National Fraternal Congress meeting in Boston on September 24, 1952, adopted a similar resolution upon the recommendation of its president, Supreme Knight Luke E. Hart. Several State Fraternal Congresses acted likewise almost immediately thereafter. This campaign led to several official attempts to prompt Congress to adopt the Knights of Columbus’ policy for the entire nation. These attempts failed.

In 1952, Holger Christian Langmack wrote a letter to President Truman suggesting the inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Mr. Langmack was a Danish philosopher and educator who came to the United States in 1911. He was one of the originators of the Prayer Breakfast and a religious leader in Washington, D.C. President Truman met with him along with several others to discuss the inclusion of "under God" and "love" just before "liberty and justice".[citation needed]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. When, if ever, was "under god" removed from the pledge?

I learned the "under god" one, too, but I remember my parents being kinda resistant to the idea.

[LiberalFighter]

10. It was never part of the original pledge. Not until 1954.

[RebelOne]

3. The one I learned in elementary school did not include "under god."

I attended elementary school in the '40s and '50s and it was not until the '50s that "under god" was added.

[immoderate]

4. ...indivisible, with liberty blah blah

I got the change when I was in third grade. Never said "under god" though. I can't figure what it means.

--imm

[marybourg]

33. Same here.

[Raine]

5. "under God" etc etc etc nt

[Solly Mack]

7. the one with "under god" but I refused to say the

pledge in the 3rd grade and didn't from that point on. Eventually the pledge was no longer said in schools I attended - not sure when it stopped though.

[dixiegrrrrl]

13. Why did you refuse to say the pledge?

Was it a quite refusal or did you announce it to anyone?

[Solly Mack]

28. A friend of mine was made to leave the room

because of her religious beliefs. (JW) They don't say the pledge. Other kids made fun of her. I thought it mean (that she was singled out each and every morning as if it was some ordeal for the teacher and an insult to the world & the other kids poking fun) and I challenged the teacher on it. The end result being my decision - quite loudly - to leave the room as well. So no more pledge. I didn't much take it serious prior to that day (the pledge) but that day did shape my thinking on the pledge/nationalism/group pressure to conform/and being different.

[dixiegrrrrl]

44. Hope your parents were proud of you for that.

I would have been if my kid did it back then.

[IphengeniaBlumgarten]

15. I have always left our the "under god" part

I was early teens when it was added (as I recall, it was supposed to be a bulwark against "godless communism&quot . T regarded as unconstitutional. And still do.

[la la]

22. i did the same..

i was 13 or 14, and said the pledge, but never the 'under God'...i was very uncomfortable with it..and i was raised in a Baptist household ( which i left..the baptist part-- a looooooooooong time ago! ;&gt

[Solly Mack]

32. It was added before I was born.

Try as they might, school/teachers and other adults/authority figures had little effect on me in regards to "patriotism".

[connecticut yankee]

40. I still don't say it

I will recite the pledge, but I remain silent during "Under God."

I am a Unitarian, and a number of my fellow Unitarians do the same. We smile or wink at each other with our private little joke.

[robinlynne]

17. me too! got in lots of trouble. Mom had to go down to the school board.

[Solly Mack]

30. I didn't get into trouble really. More a case of being seen as boat-rocker after that.

Truth be told, I was rocking the boat before then. lol

[robinlynne]

43. and thta is a good thing. imho.

[dhol82]

8. wasn't added until 1954

i learned the original version. adding the 'under god' stuff didn't make a dent. never understood what it meant anyway.

still don't.

[Irishonly]

9. Learned the under God version

I was born in the 50's.

[msongs]

12. we sang The Eyes of Texas Are Upon you every morning nt

[Journeyman]

14. In Kindergarten, I learned a version with lots of words I didn't understand . . .

When I was inducted in the military, I gave the only oath of allegiance I'll ever give, and it was not to a cloth idol but to the nation's ideals.

Now, when pressed to define what pledge I prefer, I tell people I'm partial to the "Readers Digest" version:

"I pledge allegiance to liberty and justice for all."

[byeya]

16. I'm old enough to recall when the McCarthyists added "under god" - I was 10 in elementary

school. I thought it was BS at the time, the whole pledge thing, and the more I've learned the more I feel that way.
This was a time of loyalty oaths, black listing, HUAC, Hoover, Brownell, Anslinger - the 50s were shit.

In the gloom of the Eisenhower 50's, you'd hitch 1000 miles to see a friend - Gary Snyder

[NashvilleLefty]

18. The revised version with "under God" added,

although it never really made sense. I think "one nation, indivisible" invokes Lincoln and makes much more sense. But making children recite it is definitely a form of indoctrination.

Trivia: The Pledge was originally written by a Socialist.

[hunter]

19. I was one of the weird kids who never said it for religious reasons.

Uncomfortable it was, yes, but I never did, even after the Witnesses kicked my mom out of their Kingdom Hall.

The Quakers, where we ended up, also resisted this sort of nonsense.

God is disappointed in those who recite the pledge...

Most especially, I imagine, the "under God" version.

[MineralMan]

20. I learned the one without "under God." First grade,

1951, in California. I still say it the way I learned it.

[burrowowl]

39. Me too!

[JoeyT]

21. I learned the under god version.

I don't think I ever said it after the fourth or fifth grade, though. I didn't believe in god and thought loyalty oaths were creepy.

The Bellamy salute that they're probably doing in that video is much more fitting.

[dixiegrrrrl]

45. The doc I was watching is "Why We Fight"

an amazing piece of WW2 propoganda. The shot of the little kids is outdoors, a large number of them just saying the pledge, no hand over heart or anything.

[JoeyT]

61. Depending on what year the pledge was from,

It could've either been the hand over the heart or the Bellamy salute.



Pretty easy to see why they got rid of it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

63. OMG..I had never seen that.

Obviously they got rid of it at some point during the war.
Puts the Nazi salute in a whole different perspective.
The "bellamy" salute?
Who was Bellamy, I wonder.

[JoeyT]

64. Bellamy was the guy that wrote the pledge.

He either stole the salute from the Italian fascists or from the Romans that the Italian Fascists stole it from.

Apparently "under god" wasn't the only change, either. Until I went and looked I didn't know the original said "I pledge allegiance to MY flag and the republic for which it stands". It didn't mention the country at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance#Changes

[NYC Liberal]

66. Kicker is Bellamy was a socialist. Tell that to the right-wingers who live and die by The Pledge.

It also originally included "EQUALITY" (liberty, equality, and justice) but he took it out knowing it would be too controversial (imagine that).

[JoeyT]

68. Huh. I never knew that.

Hell, I'm not sure you could jam equality in there now and get away with it.

[NYC Liberal]

69. This is a country that wouldn't pass a one-sentence amendment saying

you can't discriminate based on sex.

Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex

That's it. And that was just 40 years ago.

[dixiegrrrrl]

70. I stumbled on this about Bellamy salute..apparently WE gave it to the Naxis.

Francis Bellamy (1855–1931), a socialist, was hired by a flag company in 1892 to write a 'pledge' to the American flag, which was to be used as part of a marketing campaign to sell more flags to America's public schools. The Pledge of Allegiance, as it came to be called, was accompanied by a peculiar salute, called the Bellamy salute, in which children were encouraged to raise their hands in a military salute style and then extend them outward at the phrase "to the flag" in a straight line toward the flag as the photos below demonstrate. Remember, these are AMERICAN school children saluting the AMERICAN flag. This practice was widespread and virtually universal in America's public school systems for fifty years...
Before the Nazis, and before the Italian fascists, American school children were performing this salute every weekday morning in classrooms all across America. In fact, it was imitated by many countries shortly thereafter, including our neighbour to the south -- Mexico -- which they still use today. European fascists also imitated Americans in the Bellamy salute, desiring to add to the pomp and pageantry of their nationalistic displays. It wasn't until 1942, after America's entry into World War II, that Congress retired the Bellamy salute by officially amending the US flag code to include the hand-over-heart gesture during the full recitation of the pledge. Keep in mind, this gesture demanded by the flag code was designed to get rid of something -- the Bellamy Salute -- which had become an embarrassment to the United States after its entry into World War II. The Bellamy Salute was then buried in history, omitted from official reference, and practically banned from the history books. The fact remains however, Americans invented the very gesture that later came to be strictly associated with 20th century European fascism.
http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/2011/11/pledge-of-allegiance.html

The web page I got this from came from a google search, and is close to what Wiki says.

[MyshkinCommaPrince]

23. I think...

I think I was first taught the "indivisible" form, in my earliest grade school years. I didn't know what that (at the time) weird word meant. Later, daily recitations used the "under God" form, at different schools in a different state. But my memory may be faulty. I may have the order wrong. Hmm. Interesting question.

[annabanana]

24. I learned the first one first.. by the time

I got out of grade school, we had switched to the other. The "under God" was added to appease the red baiting loons. It was them "Godless Commies" made us do it.

[Lionel Mandrake]

25. I was in junior high school in 1954.

Prior to 1954, the wording was

... one nation, indivisible, ...

In 1954, Eisenhower (with help from Congress, churches, the DAR, etc.) made the new version official. From then on, the wording was

... one nation, under God, indivisible, ...

Just to make sure that the Eisenhowerjugend got the message, the new, obnoxious version was printed on the book covers that we all had to wrap our textbooks with. I used to cross out "under God" from my book covers. I kept crossing it out until no vestige of the obnoxious phrase was left. I have never said those words at school or anywhere else. Sometimes I would shout, "under NOBODY," which caused people to turn and look at me. My reasons were as follows:

1. Kids hate changes, and I was a kid.

2. It seemed to me that the insertion of "under God" spoiled the rhythm of what was, after all, a poem.

3. I was (and still am) an atheist. In those days, I was more militant about it.

[Xipe Totec]

26. Mexicans, at the cry of war,

Mexicans, at the cry of war,
make ready the steel and the bridle,
and may the Earth tremble at its centers
at the resounding roar of the cannon.

Let gird, oh Motherland!, your brow with olive branches
by the divine archangel of peace,
for in heaven your eternal destiny
was written by the finger of God.
But if some enemy outlander should dare
to profane your ground with his sole,
think, oh beloved Motherland!, that heaven
has given you a soldier in every son.

[dixiegrrrrl]

46. "has given you a soldier in every son."

shudder.....

I never never never ever "got it" that a family could send a son or daughter off to a war.
That feeling hit me with a shaking ferocity upon the birth of my first, and then my 2nd son.

I remember watching Nixon lying to us about the war, his ugly face filling the screen as both boys, being wee tykes, were playing on the floor by the tv.
Something went "click" in my head and heart, and I vowed that the government would never ever have my sons.

This was after the boy's father had been in Viet Nam as an "advisor" back in 65, and my brother had come home,
a withdrawn stranger, after his tour in 1968.
For all I knew then, the draft would always be in effect.

The "wee tykes" are well grown by now, they grew up to be wonderful pacifists, and caring sensitive loving men, in a generation that did not see the draft.

[lob1]

27. They added "under God" when I was in high school.

But I've never, ever said the "under God" part. I didn't (and still don't) appreciating the government forcing religion down my throat. Atheists love their country, too.

[bluestate10]

29. under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. nt

[bluestate10]

31. None of my schools did the pledge in Middle School and High School. nt

[gtar100]

34. Late '60s/early' 70s... Under God was the only version I knew.

But I didn't care at the time. They were just words, like "marezy dotes and dozy dotes and little lamzy divies" . By the time I was in 5th or 6th grade, they dropped the whole practice of saying the pledge which made it even less relevant. The meaning and insipid intent was learned later when I heard about the original version.

[Art_from_Ark]

42. It seems like most of the kids in my classes just mumbled it

It came out *sort of* sounding like the real deal, but there were a lot of substitute and ersatz English words that found their way into it Some kids would say "under dog" because that was a character on a superhero cartoon show at the time

[HillWilliam]

35. I vaguely remember

In first grade (1963) we didn't say "under G'd" and in second grade and on the class did, but I remained silent. In third through fifth I attended Lutheran school, so you know they didn't miss a chance to push the Misery Sinner point of view.

My family wasn't particularly religious, but Quaker-descended, still Quaker-influenced in attitude. Saying "under G'd" would have been swearing and one didn't use the Deity's name to swear, so said the Bible. ("Swear not by heaven, for it is G'd's throne. Swear not by the earth for it is G'd's footstool...&quot I'm fairly agnostic these days, but still will not say "under G'd" because to do so seems very disrespectful to me because of those verses. The commandment was very clear: don't.

[mzteris]

36. the one I learned did NOT have

"under god" in it.

ANd I learned it in Georgia and said it in south Alabama.

It came as a shock when as an adult I went to my kid's school and we were all saying it and we got to "that part" - I was really confused. Had to go home and look it up.

Then I remembered that there had been a whole "thing about adding 'under gawd'" but I didn't memorize it that way and it still doesn't flow for me when it's in there.

My son would say "under Buddha". They soon stopped saying it when he was around. lol.

[brewens]

37. Kids who learned the older version helped win two world wars. It didn't seem

to have hurt them much to have been "deprived" of that "under God" part.

[jberryhill]

38. The one where invisible witches stand

I don't know why invisible witches stand for the Pledge, but there you go

[Speck Tater]

41. I was in 4th grade when "under god" was added. nt

[Tommy_Carcetti]

47. To that end, if you were raised religious, what form of the Ten Commandments did you learn?

I didn't realize until later that the Catholic, Protestent and Jewish faiths all have different versions of the 10 Commandments.

Which is why I find it comical when some people insist on displaying the 10 Commandments on public grounds: Which version?

[dixiegrrrrl]

52. Was not raised religious.

Once in a purple moon I ended up in a church, dragged there by some older relative, as I recall.
Do not recall any of our large extended 3 generation family ever being church people.

[immoderate]

67. They're all OK -- as long as there are 10 of them.

--imm

[jwirr]

48. The original. Was in kindergarten in 1945.

[PoliticalBiker]

50. I learned the under god version too...

... never thought much about it until my later years.
It meant little to me. Members of my family (aunts, uncles, etc) were church goers, but I never was.
Wasn't a political issue then... at least from what I can remember.

[Atman]

51. We had to recite on all fours, naked

while being whipped by a nun.

Things were so different back then.

[dixiegrrrrl]

53. Hey Atman....

good to see you again.

[Atman]

54. Was I gone?

Just not posting as much, I guess.

[dixiegrrrrl]

56. Have not seen you much of late

Guess we are not posting in same forums much.

[LiberalEsto]

55. I pledge allegiance to the bag

of marijuana
and to the nation that's always stoned
one nickel or a dime
indivisible
with hashish for all.

A little something I picked up during my long-ago college days.

[dixiegrrrrl]

57. "nickel or dime" bag

Curses to that damned inflation!!!!

[regjoe]

58. Version with under God

Have always been an atheist and have always recited that version.
No big deal.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

59. The one without the Deity. I didn't like it either.

It's a bit degrading being forced to abase oneself before a piece of cloth.

[Blue_In_AK]

60. I learned the original one.

I remember when they added the "under God" part.

[arely staircase]

62. the under god one

that was added over a decade before i was born, so it is the only one i know, though i am aware of the history of that part.

btw - i say it five days a week with a class full of kids (minus the occassional one who can't for religious resons.)

[Rene]

65. I was in 3rd Grade at St Mary's school.....when they added the "Under God" phrase...

to the Pledge we said every morning. Took several days for all of us to remember to put it in. Our classes were about 40 kids then.

I just remembered about 4th and 5th grade were one big class.....1/2 of the nearly 60 kids in each grade. One Nun taught us all, addressing the 4th graders while 5th studies something/read.....and then she switched to the other half...... and we all did just fine.
Amazing that she, . we....and the parents all handled it well and noone complained.

Another thing we did in that school --- I guess our parents volunteered us for the Polio testing program. ----
I was in 6th, my sister in 3rd grade. One of us got the Polio vaccine in a sugar cube.....one of us got placebo. We never learned which was which..
hmmm wonder if that's what's causing all my aching muscles these last 4 years.......right now my forearms ache like crazy. aches/weakness moves all around my arm/shoulders.