I transferred from Assabet into Algonquin into Junior year. Assabets student body is made up of at least 15% JROTC kids. If you don’t know what that is it stands for Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp. This is a military training program available at the highschool level at some schools. The Sergeant Major at Assabet was a former Marine himself and had something like 3 purple hearts to his credit. So you best believe all the kids in the program stood up in the morning and said the pledge loud and proud. This had the consequent effect of the entire school saying the pledge with no issue.

Transferring in from that loud expression of patriotism to what was a mumbled pledge here at Algonquin was awkward. The first few days were a stumble to find what volume I should speak. The first day I recited with no issue, the second day was more a mumble, and on the 3rd less than a whisper.

This year I had Mr. French 1st period a former Army man if I’m not mistaken. He seems to have had much the same experience as myself. On the first day he said it loud and proud, on the second proud but a little less loud. Now coming to the end of the 1st quarter he does not delivery with the high-sound from the first day or the second but at something between speaking and nothing

Students and staff are reluctant to recite the pledge not because of some problem with the religious clauses within the pledge but because the school culture is more focused on the absence of school spirit than the absence of gratefulness for our liberties.

– Jon O’Neil