FALMOUTH — Packed almost shoulder-to-shoulder, nearly 1,000 people on the green in front of town hall recited the Pledge of Allegiance Monday night in response to Selectman Melissa Freitag skipping over the pledge at a meeting last week.

FALMOUTH — Packed almost shoulder-to-shoulder, nearly 1,000 people on the green in front of town hall recited the Pledge of Allegiance Monday night in response to Selectman Melissa Freitag skipping over the pledge at a meeting last week.



Freitag, who said she skipped the pledge because the meeting was running late, was among the people who recited the pledge outside town hall minutes before the regularly scheduled selectmen meeting.



Freitag's lips froze when the phrase "under God" came up, and then rejoined the recitation led by Town Moderator David Vieira. She passed over the phrase again when the pledge was recited during Monday night's meeting.



"I regret if I offended anyone last week," she told reporters at the meeting just before the selectmen went into executive session.



"My students felt this was a wonderful lesson on how the media can control the agenda," said Freitag, a professor at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.



"I don't think this was a media-driven thing," Selectman Brent Putnam said of the ire that news reports of the incident drew from the public. "People showed up to express their opinion."



Freitag began last week's meeting by reading a poem by Adelaide Cummings, Falmouth's poet laureate, at the request of Selectman Mary Pat Flynn, who was not at the meeting. When Freitag was reminded about the pledge, she replied, "I'd rather not tonight."



Putnam added that Freitag's action violated protocol that the board voted into effect about two years ago.



"To rather abruptly and unilaterally change the board's policy, that was wrong," Putnam said during a brief recess of Monday night's meeting.



Many of the hordes of people standing outside town hall before the meeting said news of Freitag's omission of the pledge the previous week left them feeling angry.



"In my opinion, it's a slap in the face to all those brave warriors who fought and died," said Rebecca Silva, 44, of Falmouth, whose 23 years of service to the Army National Guard included active duty in Iraq.



Wearing a Veterans of Foreign Wars jacket in the brisk evening breeze, Silva shook her head when she talked about Freitag's action last week. "We've all put our lives on the line and there are people who died for this (flag)."



Among the large crowd was about 20 counter-demonstrators who protested the practice of reciting the pledge at town meetings.



"I've never said the pledge, I'm an atheist, it excludes me," said Peter Waasdorp, a founding member of the Upper Cape Green Party. "There's a larger point here: is the pledge town business? It has nothing to do with town business."



Waasdorp and and his fellow demonstrators made their way to the steps of town hall, where they held signs decrying the pledge recitations at selectmen's meetings and recited a version of the pledge that made no references to religion or the American flag.



Falmouth police officers were on hand to quell any possible disturbances but there was little public animosity and arguments between members of the opposing sides were short-lived.



Ted Theis, a veteran of the Vietnam War and current member of the Mashpee VFW said he felt that as an elected official, Freitag should have followed board policy rather than skipping the pledge.



"It doesn't matter why she did it," Theis said. "She ignored a policy."



Kae McGuire wore a Gold Star Mother T-shirt as she joined in saying the pledge. Her 19-year-old son Daniel McGuire died in Iraq in 2008 while serving in the Marine Corps, making the pledge a personal and emotional issue for her, she said.



"I'm notorious for crying when I say the pledge," McGuire said. "That's how much it means to me."