To the editor:

I was born early enough the century past to have learned the Pledge of Allegiance without the words “under God.” Yet I love my country passionately. When I recite the pledge, I usually stumble on the words “under God,” simply because I didn’t learn it that way, but, at those times I never felt less an American.

I remember rationing stamps of World War II, and one of my tasks as a child to help support our country at war was to remove foil from gum wrappers and the like as it was recycled for the war effort.

We have owned and displayed an American flag for years. My husband is a veteran, and both my sons have served in our American armed forces, one being sent to Saudi Arabia during Desert Storm.

For whatever reason, those two words were not inserted by the writers of the pledge. They and the rest of us through 1954 considered the pledge as patriotic. I believe I’m covered under the Constitution, to say or not to say, under God, when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Talk is easy; it’s our actions that define us.

Julie Matchett,

Lawrence