How to Fold a Funeral Flag

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Harvey Kronberg. I'm going to be joined by my wife, Michele. We are going to demonstrate how to fold a funeral flag. Now, a funeral flag is typically five foot by nine and a half. It's a government spec flag. It has all cotton stars, no matter what the rest of the flag is made of and it is five by nine and a half specifically so that it will drape over the head of the coffin and over the tail of the coffin. You take the flag off of the coffin. If it's a military funeral, then they'll be...soldiers that'll be both sides of the flag, but if it's just individuals doing it, which is what we're going to demonstrate, then you end up holding the flag. Hold it upright so that you can make sure that it's draping properly. You rotate it ninety degrees so that it's parallel with the ground, again making sure it's as straight and tight as possible. You fold it in half, then you fold it in half again. You make sure your lines are straight, you creases are crisp, and then the person on the stripe end will start building the triangle. The triangle goes triangle over triangle. At each juncture, you want to make sure that you've got it crisp and clean. As they approach the blue field of stars, they continue to make sure that everything is tight, that the creases are crisp, and you keep folding until at the end, essentially, the entire flag is wrapped in the blue field that has the cotton stars. If you have any left over at the end, you simply tuck it into one of the folds. If everything has been done crisp and tight, you should have a very clean, triangular, commemorative flag."