Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Flag Day: Rules should be maintained


If you look at the calendar you will notice that today is that often overlooked non-holiday, Flag Day.

The date marks the anniversary of the day Congress adopted the design of the American flag in 1777.

America didn’t make a big deal out of the date until 1885, when a Wisconsin teacher marked the anniversary. Eventually, Flag Day became a national event, when Americans are encouraged to hang out Old Glory.

How many people will bother to put out the flag is anybody’s guess. The practice of flying the flag waxes and wanes, increasing during times of crisis and fading a little when times are good.

Regardless, there are rules of etiquette when flying the flag, rules that a lot of people have either forgotten or have never learned.

So the American Legion has made it a practice of making experts available on the proper treatment of the flag, especially around Flag Day.


In Indiana, Mike Buss is the American Legion’s state expert on the flag and fields dozens of questions by email every week

I talked to Buss briefly about the most common mistakes people make when flying the flag.

Buss says he doesn’t like the term “mistake.”

“I hate to call them mistakes when people don’t know there is a set of rules,” Buss said.

Violations of custom do occur, though.

“We appreciate people’s patriotism, but when you’ve got a torn, tattered, faded flag you need to replace it” and give the old flag to an American Legion post, which will dispose of it properly.

From time to time, people will fly a flag at half staff.

“Only the president or the governor can (authorize flying flags at half staff),” Buss said.

An example of a violation of that rule might include a high school deciding to fly the flag at half staff when a prominent athlete at the school dies, Buss said.

Some people put up flags and leave them up indefinitely, but if a flag is flown at night, it must be illuminated. Any sort of lighting, such as a porch lamp, will do, Buss said, as long as the flag is lighted.

When there are multiple flags flying, the American flag, the saying goes, owns the right. This means that if there are several poles of equal height, the American flag should be on the left, so that there is nothing to its right.

Finally, there have been cases of people flying the flag upside down because they are upset about political issues.

It happened under George W. Bush, and it has happened under Barack Obama. To fly a flag upside down is a distress signal, and it was often practiced on ships, but it’s really not the right thing to do.

Buss tends to be understanding when people say they didn’t know there is what is known as flag code.

When he was in school, Buss said, every day started with the Pledge of Allegiance, and young people were taught the code.

“The opportunity to educate people in school doesn’t occur any more,” Buss said, so the Legion relies on periodic campaigns.

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