How to Fold a Flag for a Military Funeral

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Harvey Kronberg, I'm joined by my wife Michele, we own Austin Flag and Flagpole in Austin Texas. A question we're occasionally asked is how you fold a flag for a military funeral. That is a very specific size flag that's used, it's a unique size, it's a 5 foot by 9 1/2, it's considered a casket flag that's long enough so that it drapes over the head and the foot of the casket flag. Now if it was a military funeral there would be a full honored military funeral, there would be soldiers on either side of the flag holding it. But we're going to demonstrate just using two folks. And we start by rotating the flag 90 degrees and then fold it in half, turn it again, fold it in half. Make sure that all the creases are as crisp as you can get them. The person holding the end with the stars has to get a pretty good grip on there, because you want to make this a clean, crisp and taut fold. The person on the end with the stripes, starts building a triangle and folding triangle over triangle, trying to keep the corners taut, line straight, and continues for the length of the flag. I should also mention that part of the spec for a military flag is that the stars are always made out of cotton. Eventually you get to the blue field, triangle over triangle, trying to keep everything crisp, straight and taut. Needless to say, GI's would be doing this far more crisply than we are, but you end up with a triangle and you tuck the overlap into, and you end up with a triangular flag for a military funeral."