by Todd DePastino

Each year, over 200,000 Americans, average age of 19, raise their right hand and pledge publicly to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

It’s hard to imagine any of them appreciating the full gravity of that act. Reciting the words, affirming the commitment aloud, seems like a quaint formality from a bygone age. Oaths are like handshakes, Christmas trees, and saying “God Bless You” when someone sneezes. They’re old customs passed down from who-knows-where. We hang on to them out of habit, without quite knowing why.

Oaths, in fact, are ancient. They’re so old, we can’t trace back to when they were first sworn. Historians do know that every culture in history has had them, and they persist everywhere around the globe.

Oaths made sense in a pre-literate world, when vassals vowed fealty to lords and subjects pledged themselves to kings.

But do they still have a place in our own hyper-litigious age of contract law, when written agreements bind people, labor, property, and whole societies together?

I’m certain they do because the primeval oath is more than a mere contract. It’s the public commitment of a person’s whole being—body, heart, and soul—to a cause, duty, mission, or ideal larger and more important than a single life.

A true oath isn’t bound by time or place. It’s not conditional and doesn’t contain escape clauses or loopholes, exceptions or termination triggers. It can’t be transferred, traded, or exchanged. An oath imbues life with meaning and purpose, something a mere contract can never do.

Oaths transcend our hyper-transactional world, which is so advanced, we routinely click “agree” to unimaginably complex internet contracts. Lawyers have learned to contrive multiparty long-term venture agreements across jurisdictions and layered with clauses covering every possible contingency. But they’ve never improved upon the oath as a means for commemorating a commitment so great it can’t be measured.

That’s not to say oaths don’t change. Oaths get revised as the causes and ideals to which we pledge ourselves shift in focus and clarity.

For example, the first-ever oath sworn by soldiers in what would become the United States Army is tame stuff, falling far short of a commitment to a sacred cause:

“I have, this day, voluntarily enlisted myself, as a soldier, in the American continental army, for one year, unless sooner discharged: And I do bind myself to conform, in all instances, to such rules and regulations, as are, or shall be, established for the government of the said Army.” (June 14, 1775)

This is really a spoken contract, not an oath. The swearer pledges to follow the rules for one year, no more, for this new thing called the

The oath sharpened the following year, after the fighting against Britain grew beyond a mere attempt at settling grievances into a War for Independence. On September 20, 1776, Congress approved detailed Articles of War which specified this oath for all non-commissioned officers and soldiers:

“I swear, or affirm, (as the case may be) to be true to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully against all shear enemies or opposers whatsoever; and to observe and obey the orders of the Continental Congress, and the orders of the generals and officers set over me by them.” (September 20, 1776)

This is more like it. The oath includes the word “swear”—which literally means “take an oath”—and names the larger object of fealty, something called “the United States of America.” Note, however, this new entity is not quite the singular one we think of today: it’s the United States, plural.

Note also the inclusion of “or affirm” as an alternative to “swear.” This is a concession to the religious diversity of America, which contained Quakers and Anabaptists who refused to swear allegiance or take oaths as a matter of conscience.

A month later, Congress crafted an Oath of Officers so heavy on specifics that no one could later claim misunderstanding the cause for which they fought:

“I do acknowledge the Thirteen United States of America, namely, New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to be free, independent, and sovereign states, and declare, that the people thereof owe no allegiance or obedience to George the third, king of Great Britain; and I renounce, refuse and abjure any allegiance or obedience to him; and I do swear that I will, to the utmost of my power, support, maintain, and defend the said United States against the said king, George the third, and his heirs and successors, and his and their abettors, assistants and adherents; and will serve the said United States in the office of _____, which I now hold, and in any other office which I may hereafter hold by their appointment, or under their authority, with fidelity and honour, and according to the best of my skill and understanding. So help me God.” (October 21, 1775)

Today’s Oath of Enlistment and Oath of Commissioned Officers draws directly from the next iteration, when this thing called the United States of America took an entirely new, but not entirely welcomed form.

The Constitution of the United States, drafted first during the hot summer of 1787 in Philadelphia and then subjected to a contentious ratification process, never had wide popular appeal. We don’t have polls or surveys from the era, of course, but it’s safe to say that most Americans weren’t happy with the US Constitution. It was, after all, an undemocratic document that stripped the individual states of sovereignty and created a powerful central government that people saw as threatening to individual liberty.

Even with the addition of ten amendments, intended to sway skeptics, the Constitution failed to win widespread acclaim. All ratification conventions were contentious, many votes were close, North Carolina refused to accept it, and Rhode Island rejected it 92 to 8. A group of influential New Yorkers, termed “Anti-Federalists” for their opposition to the proposed new federal system, declared the Frame of Government produced in Philadelphia to be “more arbitrary and despotic than that of Great Britain.”

All this is to say that when the first United States Congress met in New York City in March 1789, its first order of business—and the very first law it passed—was an oath of fealty to the US Constitution:

“I do solemnly swear or affirm (as the case may be) that I will support the constitution of the United States.” (signed by President George Washington, June 1, 1789)

This oath is peculiar, unique among nations, and is the basis of our contemporary military Oath. Officers in the new government—including the military—specifically swore an oath of allegiance to a legal frame of government, rather than to a monarch, a leader, a piece of land, or even a nation, conventionally understood.

As if to cover all bases, especially among soldiers with Anti-Federalist leanings, Congress added a second part to the military Oath of Enlistment in September 1789:

“I do solemnly swear or affirm (as the case may be) to bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully, against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and to observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States of America, and the orders of the officers appointed over me.” (September 29, 1789)

Note, the Oath didn’t yet contain the “enemies, foreign and domestic” proviso, though there were plenty of the latter in the decades after 1789. From the Whiskey Rebellion (1791-94) through the Hartford Convention (1814), the Missouri Crisis (1819-20), the Nullification Crisis (1832), and “Bleeding Kansas” (1854-1861), those who swore the Oath were divided in their loyalties.

For some, allegiance to the United States of America, plural, superseded adherence to the frame of government specified in the Constitution. For others, fidelity to the Constitution took precedence over obedience to state and local authorities.

Before the Civil War, pledging allegiance to two entities—”the Constitution of the United States” and “the United States of America”—entailed a potential contradiction. What if the United States of America should reject its Constitution? Or, what if the Constitution permitted the dissolution of the United States of America?

The war, of course, settled the matter, at least officially. In 1862, almost one full year after the First Battle of Bull Run, Congress revised the oath to remove any doubt: the US Constitution was the United States of America. Upholding one required upholding the other.

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have never borne arms against the United States since I have been a citizen thereof; that I have voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto; that I have neither sought nor accepted nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatsoever under any authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States; that I have not yielded voluntary support to any pretended government, authority, power, or constitution within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto. And I do further swear (or affirm) that, to the best of my knowledge and ability, 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; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God.” (July 2, 1862)

The highlighted part of the long second sentence remains the Oath of Commissioned Officers to this day, word-for-word, semicolon-for-semicolon.

The Oath of Enlistment is a different story. At first, enlisted personnel shared the same Oath as officers. Then, during World War I, something unprecedented changed everything: the Draft.

Unlike earlier conscriptions, the modern Draft yanked people out of civilian life individually and compelled them to armed service. Plenty of men, then, couldn’t swear to serve “without any mental reservation.” Nor, presumably, did Congress expect draftees to understand how their service in French trenches was in support and defense of the Constitution. The new Oath of Enlistment created by the National Defense Act of 1916 read:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the United States of America; that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies whomsoever; 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 the Rules and Articles of War.” (June 3, 1916)

Gone is reference to the Constitution. Back is allegiance to the United States of America, plural. And new is obedience to something called “the Rules and Articles of War,” the laws governing military conduct.

This Oath of Enlistment remained unchanged through World War II. Then, just before the Korean War, on May 5, 1950*, Congress approved the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) to consolidate the various branches’ laws and regulations. A new Oath came with the law, swapping out the old reference to the Articles of War in favor of a new one to the UCMJ.

The last major change to the Oath of Enlistment came in 1962, after much debate in Congress.

This was the height of both the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement—two struggles that elevated the Constitution to new prominence and challenged the United States to define the freedoms it guaranteed.

The change proposed and approved brought the Constitution back into the Oath of Enlistment and also added “so help me God” at the end, so that enlisted personnel and officers shared essentially the same Oath.

The Senate Armed Forces Committee hearings on the subject in August 1962 are fascinating to read. No one objected to the inclusion of “so help me God.” Even an ACLU attorney okayed it, so long as it was optional.

Most stirring is the testimony of those like Mr. Homer Brett, Jr., of the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies. Brett supported the amended Oath and spoke on behalf of enlisted men, whom, he claimed, “were customarily treated as inferior members of the political, economic, and social community [and] . . . therefore, not required to take any oath as complex as that which a free and highly educated citizen now takes to preserve a constitutional republic of limited and balanced powers.” Brett said the typical enlisted man “is not an ignorant peasant responsible only to the orders of his immediate military superior.”

Another witness, Admiral William R. Furlong, concurred, saying he supported the new Oath because “it will give the enlisted personnel the same full sense of responsibility to their country for the defense of the Constitution as is given by the oath required of officers. This is a government of laws and not men, and we don’t want our soldiers required to bear allegiance to something different from the officers.”

Furlong continued: “The soldiers in this country are just as good as the officers, and I have been an officer in both World Wars and in between, and also an enlisted man. And this oath merely puts them in a position of comparable dignity and comparable trust and comparable obligations.”

On October 5, 1962, Congress approved House Resolution 218, “An Act Requiring Individuals Enlisted into the Armed Forces to Take an Oath to Defend the Constitution”:

“I 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.” (October 5, 1962)

Millions of men and women have sworn this Oath in the decades since. As many veterans have reminded me, there’s no termination date specified in the Oath, no time limit to the commitment. It’s as if the Oath, once taken, sticks for life, even after the term of service ends.

That goes a long way to explaining what makes veterans special: they’re people who have pledged themselves to something greater, and they carry that commitment wherever they go.

*Most sources, including the U.S. Army Center of Military History, mistakenly date this Oath amendment to 1960.