Ceremonies - Flag - Freedom - Opening

Personnel: Narrator and 6 or more Cub Scouts.

Equipment: American flag, tape player, recording (such as America the Beautiful or This is My Country), Pack flag. 

Arrangement: The color guards advance the flags in the normal manner while the patriotic tape is playing. They come to the front and stand at attention, facing audience while narrator reads the ceremony. The tape player volume should be turned down to provide background music during narration.

Narrator: The heritage of freedom that is ours today was won on the battlefields of yesterday by men who pledged that future generations of Americans might live unshackled by the bonds of the past; that they might walk, head erect, in a new world...with new ideas...new remedies for ancient ills...and in a climate free from fear.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident" wrote Thomas Jefferson "that all men are created equal..." Those words destined to ring down the corridors of time...words which would stir the conscience of mankind.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...no other charter or treaty has ever before included that last word...happiness. It was like a fresh breeze blowing from Philadelphia that hot day in July 1776...brushing away the cobwebs of intolerance and servitude.

But somewhere along the way that "fresh breeze" became and ill wind...for a document, however noble, is only a scrap of paper if the people for whom it was written, abandon the principles it promises, or turn away from the obligations of good citizenship and ultimately reject reason and embrace hate.

It is for us, therefore, as Americans, young and old, to rediscover the time-tested values which have made this country great...to rededicate ourselves to preserving this heritage of freedom...to make the great dream work. We must never abandon our faith in America.

Join me in pledging our allegiance to our flag."