This Memorial Day, assuming you wake up early enough, you may notice the United States flag at half-staff. When you get up matters, because on Memorial Day, and only on Memorial Day, Old Glory flies at half-staff until noon. Afterward, it’s back to full staff.
That’s proper flag protocol.
The United States, perhaps you didn’t realize, is rich in flag protocol. In fact, I was talking the other day with James Ferrigan, chief protocol expert for the North American Vexillological Association — vexillology being the study of flags — and he said, “In terms of our flag awareness, the United States is the second-most flag-conscious country. We have a code for handling the flag, and a national song about the flag, and millions of us pledge allegiance to their flag daily.” In many countries, the national flag is “just window dressing, and not even allowed to be owned by its citizens unless they get permission.”
If we’re the second-most flag-conscious nation, who’s first?
“Probably North Korea.”
Maybe it’s better to be second then?
“I’m not going there.”
Being such a flag-friendly population — particularly Chicago, having woven its own starred city flag into more T-shirts than Tommy Hilfiger — I bet many of you have noticed something odd about the U.S. flag lately: It seems to be flying at half-staff all the time.
It’s not, not really, and yet it kinda feels like it, right?
You could argue that the Stars and Stripes flies at half-staff so often these days — mourning not only politicians, but police officers, firefighters, members of the military, mass-shooting victims, national tragedies, anniversaries of national tragedies — our half-staff flags are evolving into a new symbol, a reminder of a country in perpetual distress.
A flag at half-staff, at its most basic function, is a sign of mourning, Ferrigan explained. Many vexillologists hate when a politician says the gesture “honors” someone. (“There’s no honor in dying,” Ferrigan insisted.) Half-staff should be about our sadness. Its origins likely date to the use of half-mast flags in the 17th-century Anglo-Dutch Wars, when ships vying for control of the North Sea signaled the death of crew members by letting flags and riggings luff in the wind. “It meant, literally, everything was not shipshape.”
So if a country’s flag flies in mourning constantly, is a larger message being sent?
Ferrigan considered this, then asked: “Or is the importance of the gesture fading?”
This is no simple conversation.
It’s hard to begrudge anyone for wanting to recognize a death, a life of public service or a national tragedy. There are thoughtful reasons why the flag now flies at half-staff more often than it did generations ago, when a flag at half-staff was generally reserved for dead presidents, Supreme Court justices, senators and major disasters. We still have holidays in which the flag has always been flown half-staff, such as Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Some states fly the flag at half-staff on, for starters, Columbus Day, Flag Day and Thanksgiving. And since the 1990s, more days have been added in which the flag must be flown nationally at half-staff: President Bill Clinton added National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day (Dec. 7) and Peace Officers Day (May 15). After Sept. 11, 2001, George W. Bush added Patriot Day (Sept. 11) and a day to remember fallen firefighters (May 4).
Then, about 16 years ago, Illinois and other states began a tradition of flying the U.S. flag at half-staff whenever an Illinois military member, police officer, firefighter or EMS worker was killed in service. Meaning, no matter where in Illinois, say, a firefighter is killed now, the governor gives notice for government buildings to fly the flag at half-staff. The flag must fly for two days, plus the day of the funeral. This meant, in April alone, the flag flew nine days at half-staff for fallen Illinois first responders, or roughly once a week.
It’s a well-meaning gesture, especially touching if you knew the dead.
But in a pragmatic, everyday sense, said Carl “Gus” Porter III, owner of Chicago’s WGN Flag & Decorating Co. (which predates WGN media and has been around since 1916), “Some degree of white noise sets in among the public and people maintaining flags.” While his business does not perform half-staff duties for the city of Chicago’s official flags, it does service many of the city’s flags and poles — and also lowers flags to half-staff for private businesses in the city and suburbs, including offices to hotels. He said that sometime during the waning days of the war in Afghanistan, there was a change.
“People didn’t want us to come lower a flag if we’d have to come again days later,” he said. “Now it’s gotten to the point where we seem to lower the flag for everything, so unless it’s a flag on a government building, I see people starting to ignore half-staff directives. That’s what happens if you take away the uniqueness of the gesture itself.”
Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political studies at the University of Houston, has studied presidential proclamations, including those about flying the U.S. flag, and he said you’re not imagining this: Historically, politicians are lowering the flag more often, partly because “there’s more willingness from presidents to politicize.” One study he conducted found that half-staff has become “a way of narrowcasting support to specific groups that’s politically useful.” (For instance, firefighters and police.) “It reflects the polarization of the country,” so much so that “not lowering a flag is now political action.”
President Donald Trump’s administration, for instance, refused to make half-staff directives in recognition of the death of Sen. John McCain, police officers who died because of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and the shooting of journalists at the Capital newspaper in Maryland.
But then relented.
To be fair, other than McCain, there is little guidance in the U.S. Flag Code on how to approach flying a half-staff flag for anyone who isn’t a government official. The code is specific on certain things: Only a president, state governor or mayor of the District of Columbia can order flags flown half-staff. A president gets 30 days of half-staff; a vice president or Supreme Court chief justice gets 10; a member of Congress two. There are more rules, but the code offers no guidance for who, what or how long a flag can be lowered.
Governors are the quickest to exploit this. Former Gov. John Kasich of Ohio twice ordered flags lowered for police dogs. Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey lowered flags for “Sopranos” star James Gandolfini, Whitney Houston, Yogi Berra and E Street Band member Clarence Clemons. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis lowered flags for Rush Limbaugh (though several local government officials refused to follow the order). In Oklahoma, flags were lowered for a highway worker killed while filling a sinkhole. In Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker ordered flags lowered for one year during the pandemic.
That didn’t sit well with James Schultz, former trustee of the village of Vernon Hills. “Frankly, it stuck in my craw.” He’s an Army veteran and service officer for American Legion Post 1247 in Vernon Hills and the American Veterans Post 66 in Wheeling.
“We were seeing first responders who died during that period and there was no real lowering of the flag for them because it had already already lowered,” he remembered.
So a few years ago he began working with state Rep. Daniel Didech and state Sen. Adriane Johnson on amending the Illinois Flag Display Act to limit the length of time an Illinois governor could leave the U.S. flag at half-staff. Their tweaks passed the Illinois General Assembly in 2021, and now (though the language in the act remains a bit vague) the flag will likely not remain lowered for longer than a late president would receive — 30 days.
Still, technically, do whatever you want.
There’s no penalty for flying the flag too often at half-staff (other than perhaps in the court of opinion). Mayors do not have the right to order U.S. flags to half-staff, but many do anyway. In fact, outside of government, private homes or businesses can lower flags (or leave them in place) whenever they feel like it. Cleveland’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame lowered the flag to mark the deaths of David Bowie, Little Richard and Eddie Van Halen.
The United States has used half-staff traditions since the death of George Washington, but national standards weren’t codified until the Eisenhower administration. Incidentally, President Dwight Eisenhower issued just 13 half-staff proclamations in eight years. John F. Kennedy issued three; Lyndon Johnson nine; Richard Nixon 16. That number ticked upward during the Ronald Reagan years, with flags lowered for the death of Anwar el-Sadat and the Challenger explosion, among other tragedies. Clinton issued more than 50. George W. Bush issued about 60. And Barack Obama broke everyone’s record with more than 70, marking the death of figures such as South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, both the 150th anniversary of the Lincoln assassination and the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination, and mass shootings in Connecticut, Colorado and elsewhere; he also lowered flags for the embassy bombing in Benghazi and the Boston Marathon bombing.
The length of an administration matters.
Trump, who issued directives for the Las Vegas mass shooting, the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the first 100,000 COVID deaths, made a few dozen such proclamations. President Joe Biden, who ordered flags lowered for the mass shooting in Highland Park, is on track for roughly the same number of orders as George W. Bush, Rottinghaus said.
“On the other hand,” he added, “if we now overdo the use of half-staff, maybe that in itself should be telling us something, particularly about the frequencies of our tragedies.”
In other words, do we limit the number of days we publicly express empathy?
Or reconsider the problems that are handing us more tragedies to mourn?
After all, if the crew is not happy, let those sails luff.
cborrelli@chicagotribune.com
