Swearing In

Swearing In

I have experienced a couple of opportunities to swear people in recently in special ways that I want to share with you.

Yosemite Junior Ranger


Part of my duties as a Ranger is to train and award badges to Junior Rangers. Last year I had a family from Israel attend on of my guided nature walks. During the walk their children fulfilled all of the requirements to become a Yosemite Junior Ranger. When I award the Junior Ranger badges and swear in the new Junior Rangers, I like to draw a big crowd and invite all of the visitors on the sidewalks in the area to participate. I sometimes can draw in over a hundred visitors or so to listen to the proceedings. We had a very large crowd when I swore in the Israeli family children. The mother was taking lots of pictures as I swore them in.

Well, this year the family returned to Yosemite and they looked me up. It was great to see them again. The mother who took all of the pictures told me that she entered the best picture into a national photo contest. She said many Israeli people viewed our picture. I thought that was cool.

Swearing in a new military officer


I was roving the point one day in my class “A” uniform when a couple of military officers entered the point in their class “A” uniforms. They approached me to ask where they could conduct a short military ceremony. I lead them to an ideal location and asked them what they were planning to do. A USAF Captain was going to swear in his brother as a new second lieutenant in the US Army. I asked it I could participate in some manner so they asked me to hold the US flag for them as a back drop. I was eager to assist in any way I could.

The ceremony was short but very professional and definitely military quality. Many hundreds of people had gathered to listen to the proceedings. Following the ceremony I announced the new officer to the observing crowd and the officer received a huge and lengthy ovation. It was a very special impromptu event that was very well received. I was just proud to be part of it. I love my work as a Park Ranger.