Up or down?

Random topic but one I've wondered about and so am pleased to see an article on it: flag lowering.

I feel like, when I was little, it was rare for flags to be flown at half-staff. So much so, I can remember going to school one day - maybe 4th or 5th grade - seeing the flag lowered on the way in, and wondering for much of the morning why it was so. Maybe I should have just asked someone...ah, a lesson I still haven't learned.

Anyway, today it seems that whenever I walk through the Diag, the flag is lowered. So much so, I now routinely find myself asking if it is ever not at half-staff.

Apparently politicians, in their infinite wisdom, have drafted a bill to ensure a consistent approach to the decision of whether the flag shall be up or down.

Much of the debate is over what to do when a local soldier is killed in combat. I certainly agree that a single soldier's life is valuable and, in many cases, they have probably given greater service to the country than the elected officials for whom the flag is always and automatically lowered. But I think one interviewee summarizes my own experience best:

“When we lower it now, people notice it and ask why,” Mr. Burk said. “If you lower every time a soldier dies, it will be down so often that people will only notice and ask when it’s up.”

My good man from Ohio makes an important point as well:

Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio, a Democrat who opposes the war but does not lower flags for killed Ohio soldiers says, “I think putting the flag at half-staff is a strong symbolic thing to do. But quite frankly, it’s a fairly easy thing to do. It doesn’t require anything of us either as political leaders or as citizens.”

Fallen soldiers deserve to be commemorated by their hometown. When there are so many fallen soldiers however, lowering the flag quickly loses a lot of its meaning. Maybe, if such honoring is truly so important to these politicians, they should think a little longer on a more meaningful way of doing it.