Respecting the Stars and Stripes: American Flag Etiquette

Here’s a great article we found from the American Legion Auxiliary’s webpage about how to handle your American Flag this Summer!

https://www.alaforveterans.org/Respecting-the-Stars-and-Stripes–American-Flag-Etiquette/

Among some of the guidance you’ll find in the above link, there’s this great information you may not have known about flag care!

Hoisting and Lowering of the Flag:

• The flag should be hoisted briskly and lowered ceremoniously.
• The flag of the United States of America is saluted, or acknowledged by placing a hand over your heart, as it is hoisted and lowered.
• When lowered, the flag should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water or merchandise.

Manner of Displaying the Flag:

• The Flag Code states it is the universal custom to display the flag only from sunrise to sunset on buildings and on stationary flagstaffs in the open.
• When a patriotic effect is desired, the flag may be displayed twenty-four hours a day if properly illuminated during the hours of darkness.
• The flag should not be displayed on days when the weather is inclement, except when an all-weather flag is displayed.
• The flag should be displayed vertically, whether indoors or out, and suspended so that its folds fall free as though the flag were staffed.
• When displayed in a window of a home or a place of business, the flag should be displayed in the same way; that is, with the union or blue field to the left of the observer in the street.

 

Storing and Disposing of the Flag:

• The Flag Code does not require any specific method of storage, however, over time it has become tradition to fold the flag into a triangular shape like that of a three-corner hat, with only the blue union showing.
• When a flag is so worn it is no longer fit to serve as a symbol of our country, it should be destroyed by burning in a dignified manner. 
• Flag etiquette was established to honor and pay tribute to our nation and its history. As such, certain uses of the American flag are considered disrespectful. The flag should never be:
• Displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.
• Used as a drapery or for any other decoration.
• Carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free.
• Used as a receptacle for receiving, holding, carrying, or delivering anything.
• The flag should never be used as apparel, bedding or drapery.
• Festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed to fall free.

Visit the ALA Facebook Page here:  https://www.facebook.com/alaforveterans