John F Kennedy Inauguration Speech Analysis

The famous words of John F. Kennedy’s inauguration speech echoed through my head, as I entered a small room designed for an even smaller capacity. Across from me, a man stood in uniform. ‘This was it’, I thought to myself, quite happy that I had managed to clear initial processing. A few other people who had also barely made it through stood beside me. The man in uniform looked at us like he expected a lot from us, though he knew that we were extremely tired.

“Please raise your right hand and repeat after me.” He said, breaking the silence. I immediately raised my right hand and looked around to make sure that the rest did so as well. By the time I had finished reciting after the man, I had said something along the lines of:
I, SHURJO ALI,
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."
The man in uniform lowered his hand, and smiled. “Thanks for joining, and I hope you like it!”

. . .

I strive to keep all the promises I make. Often times, I think about what I had promised that day, so I can attempt to keep it. I promised to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, to bear faith and allegiance to the United States, and to obey the orders of those over me in order to preserve the Constitution.
Though I respect others thoughts and beliefs and can keep mine to myself, I believe that nor I, nor any sailor, soldier, airman, or marine, can fully fulfil their promise made the day they swore their allegiance to the Constitution; the ideology of those we protect has shifted against us and our values.

We the people, acknowledge our freedom of speech by stepping all over the American flag, then acknowledge that it is within our pursuit of happiness to legalize marijuana.
We believe in our pursuit to be “young and reckless” that it is our right to be free and happy, without wanting to acknowledge others’ rights to the same. While our government works towards giving us benefits like education and healthcare, we work towards our eventual ideological destruction.
We don’t even swear our allegiance to the United States of America, our country, because of our belief that it imposes the acknowledgement of God to an individual. We put more emphasis on the courage of a man struggling through a gender identity crisis, than on the courage of our brave American soldiers who go to battle so that we may maintain our civil liberties and our values. But what really are these new American values?

While I’ve tried to educate people on our American values by telling them current events, it seems the majority of kids and young adults aren’t interested in the state of our nation, but rather interested in what’s trending on Twitter. It is a sad but true reality, where the country that was once known for giving the most liberties and respect to its citizens, isn’t being acknowledged or respected by those
citizens.