Page 30 - AL POST 390 OFFICER'S GUIDE AND MANUAL OF CEREMONIES - 2020

The color guard executes parade rest, inclining their heads.

Commander: "Comrades, attend the memorial prayer."

Chaplain: "Eternal God, we thankThee for this hallowed soil. Make us worthy; we prayThee to guard
our heritage of pride through all the years to come. In memory of these, our dead, may we pledge to our
beloved land the same service and the same devotion. And, 0 Lord, secure to us evermore the peace for
which our comrades died. Amen."

The following floral ceremony may be omitted.

Commander: ``Sergeant-at-arms (or other comrade designated), you will deposit upon the monument (or
graves) of our comrades a token of our enduring memory."

The sergeant-at-arms lays flowers.
Commander: "The flowers may wither, but the spirit of which they are the symbol will endure until the end
of time.„

In the case of naval posts, it may be preferred to scatter flowers on the sea or a stream instead`

Commander (to the officer in charge of firing squad): '`Salute the dead!"
The officer in charge of the flring squad shall cause the salute to be fired in the manner prescribed by infantry
drill regulations in force at the time.
The bugler sounds taps. The post returns in the same order of march as before.

Independence Day

The audience is seated. After the preliminary parade, the post enters, in uniform or wearing ceremonial badges,
and files into the reserved space or seats. The commander takes a designated place upon the platform with the
chaplain, guests and speaker.
Commander: "(Post name and number), Department of The American Legion,
attention to orders."

The adjutant shall read orders. After the reading, members will be seated.
Commander: "Comrades and friends, we meet to celebrate the anniversary of our country`s independence.
The vice commander will read portions from the declaration made by our forefathers on July 4,1776."

First vice commander: '`When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers
of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a
decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them
to the separation.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving theirjust powers from the
consent of the governed and that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation
on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect
their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should
not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind
are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms

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