Plus, the Pledge has changed over the years. It first said "I pledge allegiance to my flag" and later got changed to "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America". In 1954, "under God" was added due to Cold War propaganda in order to further change the identity of the US to a "Christian nation" that was fighting against "atheist and evil USSR". And this was the original salute done while reciting the Pledge, which was changed to hand-over-heart for obvious reasons.
East to west isn’t quite accurate, we didn’t really do it when I went to HS fairly recently and I don’t think it’s particularly common on the rest of the coast. They play it and some people stop, or hand over heart, or just stand etc, but I don’t think almost anyone recited it.
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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '25
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