David Feherty becomes U.S. citizen

CBS golf analyst David Feherty, a Northern Irishman by birth, became a citizen of the United States on Tuesday, one of 31 to recite the Oath of Allegiance to the United States at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Irving, Texas.

Feherty told the Dallas Morning News that a visit to Baghdad, Iraq, to visit U.S. troops two years ago convinced him that he wanted to become a citizen.

"I wanted to be able to call them my soldiers, my pilots, my sailors," Feherty, a Dallas resident, told the newspaper. "I have the benefit of living in this country and it is maintained by them...Thomas Jefferson said we need soldiers and teachers, and it is as true now as it was then."

Here is the Oath, incidentally, required of all immigrants who wish to become U.S. citizens:

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

-- John Strege