The Pledge of Allegiance

On October 11, 1892 Francis Bellamy wrote the Pledge of Allegiance to honor Christopher Columbus. It originally read like this: "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." It was first recited in schools the next day, October 12, 1892.
"My flag" was changed to " the flag of the United States of America" so immigrants would know which flag they were pledging to. America is the only western country that requires students to pledge loyalty to his or her country.
The Pledge of Allegiance was made optional by the Supreme Court (voted in favor 8-1) in 1943. One of the main reasons was the fact that Jehovah Witnesses (a Christian sect) can't salute a flag or pledge loyalty to anything lower than God.
In June of 1954, the words "under God" were added. They were added to distance Americans from those "horrible" Godless Communists. The only problem being that it violates our right to have freedom of religion (Amendment 1). In fact, we have the right to have no religion, and we've had the right since the constitution was written.
The school can't force a student to say the pledge. You can't get in trouble for refusing to say the pledge. If you're loud or disruptive while others are saying the pledge you can get in trouble. You're expected to say the pledge, not required.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) the Supreme Court said that if you have freedom to say what you want, you don't have to say something if you don't want to. That makes sense.
I personally think that the pledge is a pointless waste of time. Why are kids as young as four or five years old pledging allegiance to their country? I have never met a kindergartener who knew the meaning of pledge, allegiance, republic or indivisible. Why would anyone even expect them to get the meaning of that?
Some might argue that students in older grades should say it. I don't know anyone who actually puts much thought into saying the pledge. I think that you should say what you mean and mean what you say. Yet another waste of time.
If you join the army, yeah you should say it, though I don't think that "under God" section should remain part of the pledge. That's basically declaring that America has an official religion, which we don't. In the United States there's supposed to be a separation of church and state. Making students in public, government run schools say "under God" is mixing church and state.
So let's just stop this pledge. Like I said before, it's a waste of time. In the next chapter, I'll probably just respond to reviews.

Sources-
1. 2. - Freedom of Expression