The pledge of allegiance.

So today, I was rereading one of my favorite books, Catch-22, and I came across what has always been one of my favorite parts in the book. In this part, Captain Black wants to make it look like he's the more loyal than some of the other people in his squadron so he begins to make all the soldiers sign loyalty oaths. Eventually, the loyalty oaths get out of hand when he begins to make them do things like sign 3 loyalty oaths, say the pledge of allegiance twice, and sing the star spangled banner to prove they're loyal to America and not communists before they get to eat in the mess hall. I'm not sure if that's the exact number of times they had to do all that, but you get the idea. This is one of my favorite parts in the book because Captain Black made a point that is kind of funny/relevant to today's society when he said to a group in his squadron, "The important thing is to keep them pledging. It doesn't matter whether they mean it or not. That's why they make little kids pledge allegiance even before they know what "pledge" and "allegiance" mean. " It really makes sense though. I mean, in first grade me and my fellow classmates all stood up to pledge our allegiance every day. I certainly didn't fully grasp the idea of pledging allegiance when I was six and I would guess that not many other people did either, so why does society still have kids do it? I think it takes away from the meaning of pledging allegiance to something if the people that are pledging don't understand the gravity of it all and are just following along and pledging with the rest of their classmates. Why do we pledge anyway? It's not like pledging at a young age would really stop anyone from being a traitor against their country later in life or anything like that. Maybe we do it because we like tradition.  The fact that kids are socialized to pledge like this seems a little totalitarian in nature too, even though it's not like it's really taken that seriously anyway. To be honest, I do like the star spangled banner before pro sports games and stuff like that. I like the song, and I also like having it before games because I view it as more of an ode to the revolutionary war than a verbal loyalty oath, which is what the pledge is.