Voices: Old Glory at half-staff a sad sign of our times
OAKWOOD, OHIO — It’s a grand old flag, it’s a high-flying flag — though not so much as of late.
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.
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.
Since Tucson, the flag has been ordered lowered nationally an additional 46 times.
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.
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 You’re a Grand Old Flag, “You’re the emblem of the land I love.”
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.
“Forever in peace may you wave,” goes the song. Here’s hoping Old Glory flies high for the rest of 2016.
Olsen is a copy editor at USA TODAY.
