No One Asked Me But… (September 12, 2018)

By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… As is my general practice, I attended a home game in which Valley High School had come to town to engage our Moapa Valley High School football team. For the second time in nearly twenty years, I was watching the game from the stands instead of at the north end of the field where the Rotary Club was cooking hamburgers and hot dogs for the booster club.

With our home team well on its way to defeating a team from Las Vegas that out numbered our student body five to one; and after my wife had an opportunity to see Pirate Motion, our school’s marvelous dance team; we moved down the bleachers to head for home.

I passed a nice lady who worked with me at the high school when I was the principal. She stopped me and expressed her disappointed in my pre-game behavior. She explained that I had failed to remove my hat during the playing of the National Anthem. She was correct; however, it was not out of neglect nor was it a Colin Kaepernick moment. I did not remove my cover (Marine and Navy term for hat), it remained in place and I rendered a military hand salute to the flag.

A few years ago, the commanders of the local American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars post, both of which I am a member, informed the members that all veterans had been given, under The National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 as amended in 2009 the option of remaining covered when saluting the flag as they had while on active duty.

Having been challenged about my behavior and having only the word of my fellow veterans, I set out to validate the information I had been given. In the search I found a number of interesting facts about saluting the flag, including the following: The National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 allows un-uniformed service members, military retirees, and veterans to render a hand salute during the hoisting, lowering, or passing of the U.S. flag. The next year an amendment to this act further authorizes hand-salutes during the national anthem by veterans and out-of-uniform military personnel. This was the Defense Authorization Act of 2009, which President Bush signed into law.

In researching the topic of saluting the flag, it was interesting to note that no one saluted the flag for the first 116 years of the nation. In 1892, Danial Sharp Ford, owner of the popular magazine Youth’s Companion began a campaign to place American flags in every classroom in the nation. Along with the flags, Sharp assigned Francis J. Bellamy, one of his staff writers to create a pledge to be recited to honor the flag. This Pledge of Allegiance was first published in the Youth’s Companion, and immediately became popular throughout the United States.

Bellamy and Sharp also felt a non-military style salute should be given to the flag as the Pledge was recited. This gesture became known as the Bellamy Salute. The instructions for the Bellamy Salute were simple: When reciting the Pledge, each person was to extend their right arm straight ahead and pointing slightly upward, with their fingers pointing straight ahead or in the direction of the flag, if present.

Americans had no problem with the Bellamy Salute and rendered it proudly until the days before World War II, when Italians and Germans began showing loyalty to dictators Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler with the disturbingly similar “Heil Hitler!” salute. On December 22, 1942, Congress passed a bill amending the United States Flag Code to mandate that the Pledge of Allegiance should “be rendered by standing with the right hand over the heart,” exactly like we do it today.

Getting back to the issue at hand, the hand salute versus the holding of the hand over one’s heart during the playing of the National Anthem. Secretary of Veterans Affairs, James B. Peake stated: “The military salute is a unique gesture of respect that marks those who have served in our nation’s armed forces. This provision allows the application of honor in all events involving our nations flag.”

While this is true I believe the salute veterans render has a greater significance. This salute is a reaffirmation of the oath each Marine swears when he has completed boot camp. It goes as follows: “I do solemnly swear 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.”

This is an oath I swore fifty-eight years ago and it was an oath I asked God to help me fulfill.
As a Christian, when I take an oath it is never ending. Numbers 30:2 states: “If a man vows a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.” Deuteronomy 23:21-23 further states: “If you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it, for the LORD your God will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin…You shall be careful to do what has passed your lips, for you have voluntarily vowed to the LORD your God what you have promised with your mouth.”

Yes, I am aware that both Matthew and James warns against making an oath. However, once the oath is taken and one asks for God’s help in fulfilling that oath, I believe one is obligated to fulfill that oath.
Each time I salute the flag, I am reminded that even though I am now 78 years old, I am still obligated to fulfill that oath because it transcends the nation. The placing of one’s hand over their heart in reverence of the flag indicates love for one’s country. The rendering of a hand salute indicates a love of country, but more than that, it indicates a duty one has sworn an oath to fulfill.

I would encourage my fellow veterans, Christians or not, to salute the flag and remember the oath we have made to defend this beloved country of ours.

Thought of the week… An oath is a solemn promise about your behavior or your actions. Often, when you take an oath, the promise invokes a divine being.