Reference Question of the Week – 10/18/09
October 24th, 2009On my drive in to work this past Thursday, I noticed the Fire Stations in town had the American Flag flying at half-mast. I wondered why, but forgot about it by the time I got to the library.
Shortly after we opened, someone walked up to the desk said he saw some Flags at half-mast, and asked why the Library's Flag wasn't. No one on staff knew, so I went online looking for some kind of government Flag-flying website. I found all kinds of useful resources.
I didn't find any government proclamation lowering the Flag that day, but I did find a few half-mast calendars, as well as many flag companies that offer email notification reminders of when to lower the Flag:
Flag Flying Calendars & Notifications
- http://halfstaff.org
- http://www.flagsexpress.com/half_staff/half_staff2.html
- http://www.aflag.com
- http://www.gettysburgflag.com/NewsletterOptInOut.php
It was also interesting (to me) to read about when the Flag could be flown at half-mast. Lots of pages offered general information, including the Flag Code:
General Flag Information
- Flag Code: US House of Representatives - American Legion - Cornell Law School - USHistory.org
- Our Flag [pdf] - 56 page pdf handbook on Our Flag and well as state/territory flags and the Great Seal
- Our Flag - Federal Citizen Information Center (same information as above, but as html and with fewer pictures)
- USFlag.org
- Wikipedia's article on the Flag
However, none of this answered my question about why some Flags in town had been lowered and some hadn't. I called the Town Manager's office, to see if they knew of (or had issued) a proclamation, but they were as puzzled as I.
So I called the Fire Department, since it was Fire Station Flags I had seen lowered. The person I spoke with there said the Stations lowered their Flags because a former Fire Chief had died, and they were honoring him.
Okay, so that answers that question. I'm not sure this is permitted under the Flag Code, but I wasn't going to push it. In researching this, I did learn that it was okay to put a black ribbon on a Flag to mourn someone's death (or when a fixed Flag can't be lowered), which I hadn't known.
And being the person I am, my favorite finds of the day were Flag Code Violations in the News and American Flag Wall of Shame, which detail prominent gaffs of people who really should have known better.
October 24th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Hi Brian,
Thanks for putting together a very useful list of flag-related information.
I did want to mention one picky detail, which is the use of the phrase “half mast”. Many people incorrectly use this phrase to describe flag position on a pole on land. The correct phrase for land-based flags is “half staff,” as reflected in the links in this post. Flags flown at sea would be at “half mast,” as in the mast of a ship.
October 24th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
@Sarah: funny you’d say that – I actually debated about mast/staff while writing this. I wasn’t sure if there was a difference, but thought if there was, it’d have to do with mast=water – which I took to be the original phrase, so I just went with it. Thanks for pointing out the difference.
October 26th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Maine has an RSS feed: Governor’s Flag Etiquette
Current flag status for the State of Maine. Any changes in flag status will be noted and explained.
It is extremely useful.
October 27th, 2009 at 12:33 am
Great post, it inspired me to write a blog post from a Canadian perspective at http://make-it-known.blogspot.com/2009/10/is-flag-at-half-mast-why.html
And there’s an interesting discussion here about the mast/staff vocabulary issue: http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/words/flagflap.html – it’s from a Canadian perspective, but also gives background history and includes American information too.
October 27th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
@Lisa: Thank you for the link – that was interesting. I thought there was a distinction between the two, I just tend to use them interchangeably.
Incidentally, the same is true with “hardcover” and “hardback” – I use those interchangeably, but was recently corrected when I said “hardback.” I was told that “paperback” is okay, but “hardcover” is preferred and “hardback” is incorrect.