Reference Question of the Week – 10/18/09
October 24th, 2009 Brian Herzog
On 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.
