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The U.S. flag should be flown every day but especially on national holidays. FlagandBanner.com presents the 2014 holiday calendar with half staff information.
The New Year is almost upon us and many may be sitting down to mark special dates on their calendars. While marking down birthdays and special events, think about marking what days to lower your American flag to half staff. While the American flag should be flown every day of the year, it is especially important to fly flags on national holidays and if they are half staff days, flags should always be lowered to half staff.
Kerry McCoy, owner of FlagandBanner.com, said, “The American flag does not stand for any political party or faction, it stands for every American. We look to our flag in times of national triumph such as the upcoming Olympics when we hope to see our flag displayed and our national anthem play. We again look to our flag in times of national tragedy, such as the Boston Marathon bombing this past year or September 11th, 2001. These times of trial or celebration are when we as a nation rally around our flag. Let us hope in 2014 that half staff notices will only be issued for already known holidays and we also hope you will join us in proudly flying your flag all 365 days this year.”
Why Is The U.s. Flag Flown At Half Mast So Often Nowadays?
If you would like reminders of when to fly your flag at half staff for events other than those listed in the calendar above sign up for Flag Alerts from FlagandBanner.com.
FlagandBanner.com is based in Little Rock, Ark., and has been in business since 1975. They have been selling flags, flagpoles, banners, pennants and home and garden décor online nationally since 1995.
For more information about the more than 22, 000 products FlagandBanner.com offers, log on to FlagandBanner.com, become a fan on Facebook, or call one of their Flag Experts for answers to any and all questions about flags, banners, pennants and more at 1-800-445-0653.If it seems the U.S. flag has been lowered to half-staff a lot recently, it’s because it has. By presidential proclamation, the flag has been lowered nationally during seven of the past nine months. In that time, it was ordered at half-staff for 10 events — five terrorist attacks, two deaths and three remembrance days. Twice, events overlapped when the flag was already lowered, bringing the total to 39 days spent at half-staff.
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The past two months alone have been very somber. Since Feb. 13, the flag has been lowered 18 out of 51 days to pay tribute to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, former first lady Nancy Reagan and victims of the terrorist attack in Brussels.
In fact, this is the first time in five years that the flag was lowered at all during the first quarter of the year. The last time was January 2011, in remembrance of the Tucson shooting, which killed six people and wounded 13, including then-U.S. representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona.
The president can also issue proclamations specific to a state. In April 2013, President Obama ordered that all flags in Texas be lowered in honor of the 15 people killed in an explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas. States can issue certain proclamations, too. On March 9, for example, Wisconsin ordered flags at half-staff to honor the burial of a World War II sailor from Green Bay who was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor and whose remains were recently identified.
Michael Trautmann 768x512.jpg
There are five times the flag is always lowered: Peace Officers Memorial Day, Memorial Day, Patriot Day, the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Service and Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. In the past five years, 2014 has the distinction of being the only year in which those were the only times the flag was lowered nationally. It is a year in which no terrorist attack was recognized by presidential proclamation. (The state of Texas did order its flags lowered that April after a gunman killed three people at Ford Hood.)
In 2011, the U.S. flag was lowered nationally seven times (including for victims of the Tucson attack). In 2012, it was lowered 12 times (including for victims of attacks in Aurora, Colo.; Oak Creek, Wis.; Benghazi, Libya; and Newtown, Conn.). Both 2013 and 2015 saw 10 times each (including for victims of attacks in Boston; the Washington Navy Yard; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Roseburg, Ore.; Paris; and San Bernardino, Calif.).
Our flag is a united front against tyranny, a banner of resistance against those who wish to do us harm, a symbol of the American spirit that can’t be squelched — no matter what. Like it says in the song
U.s. Flags To Fly At Half Staff For Shimon Peres, An Honor Historically Given To Few Other Foreign Dignitaries
Two months after that song debuted in 1906, San Francisco was razed in an earthquake and fire, leaving more than 3, 000 dead. Sailors in San Francisco Harbor lowered their flags to half-mast, even though the U.S. Flag Code wouldn't become law for another 36 years. On Sept. 11, 2001, flags were lowered at Ground Zero and across the country before President George W. Bush had any chance to issue a proclamation. As it was 95 years earlier, Americans didn’t need to be told. The flag may have hung low, but our resolve was never higher.NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly every day, somewhere in the country, the Stars and Stripes was lowered to half-staff last year in one of the most significant official gestures of mourning and respect, an Associated Press analysis found.
The centuries-old practice can be a visible, public answer to extraordinary loss, as when more than four dozen people were killed last month at a gay nightclub in Florida. But as the nation marks Independence Day on Monday, flag buffs have noted that the honor has been extended more widely over time, including to celebrities and police dogs. And some have questioned whether the country has lowered the bar on the lowering of the flag.
“It can be a very powerful symbol, but it can also be overdone to the point that it loses its significance, ” said John Hartvigsen, president of the North American Vexillological Association, a flag aficionados’ group. “You can’t spell everything out about this in rules and regulations, because it has so much to do with emotion.”
Rules On Flying The American Flag
The U.S. Flag Code allows presidents and governors to lower flags for officials, military members and certain occasions, though some states have their own broader policies. And even as some states have moved to tighten their rules, others faced criticism for withholding the tribute.
The AP’s analysis of proclamations from 50 state governors and the federal government found the Stars and Stripes were lowered at least someplace in the country on 328 days during 2015.
Eight states had orders lowering the U.S. flag in effect over more than 30 days; Massachusetts led all others, keeping the flag at half-staff for over a quarter of the year, including on the Fourth of July.
The End Of Men
Those honored last year alone with a half-staff U.S. flag include five Georgia Southern University nursing students killed in a car wreck and a Downey, California, police officer shot in his car in a police parking lot in an alleged robbery attempt. Flags were lowered for a Missouri state official who was running for governor when he killed himself after a radio ad mocked his appearance, and for an Oklahoma state road worker who died helping to fill a sinkhole. One honoree was a police dog shot in Ohio.
Who gets honored, and when, can be controversial. Recent years saw tension over lowering flags nationwide for former South African President Nelson Mandela and in New Jersey for the singer Whitney Houston .
Seeing half-staff flags on July Fourth last year jarred Amherst, Massachusetts, resident Larry Kelley, who felt the tribute — part of a 13-day honor for a state senator — “sends the wrong message” on the nation’s birthday.
American Flag Etiquette Rules
“It just seemed to me to take away from the whole idea of lowering the flag, ” said Kelley, adding that he’d have felt differently if the state were mourning a line-of-duty death or major public trauma. He initially didn’t even realize what the occasion was, until a reader of his local-issues blog filled him in.
Concerned that lowering flags frequently muted the impact, Kentucky decided in 2008 to recognize fallen local military members only on their burial days. Colorado established rules a few years ago spelling out what categories of people are honored statewide, including military members, state officials and police and firefighters who die on duty.
“It’s such an honor and a recognition for people, you never want to say no. But you can’t always say yes, ” said Kathy Green, a spokeswoman for Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper. “So we had to set some parameters.”
U.s. Flag At Half Staff 328 Days Last Year: Is The Tribute Overused?
Even denying flag honors to a convicted felon didn’t fly in Rhode Island. Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo initially declined to lower flags this year for longtime former Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci, a Republican-turned-independent who’d been convicted of corruption. Amid an outcry from Cianci fans, Raimondo changed her mind “out of respect for the office he held for 20 years.”
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, took heat for not lowering flags after three local Marines were killed in a March 2015 helicopter crash during training off Florida. State policy reserved the honor for those killed in combat, but after veterans’ groups complained, Snyder reversed course.
To Wayne Luznicky, a Vietnam War veteran who leads the Marine Corps League’s Grand Rapids
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