How to Take Care of a Flag

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Harvey Kronberg with Austin Flag and Flagpole and one of the questions we get asked a lot is how do you take care of the flag? Well, first let's start with how you take care of the flag when you are displaying it. If you have one flagpole and you're going to do multiple flags, of course the US flag is at the top. It's in the position of honor. If you've got multiple flagpoles that are the same size, you put the flag on the left, on the viewer's left. That's considered the position of honor, and if you have multiple flagpoles that are different sizes, you put the American flag on the tallest flagpole. When you take it down, it is not necessary to do a triangular fold for storage. You can simply do a rectangular fold. You do want to store it in a dry place so that it won't get mildewed, or stained, or discolored. It's best to put it in some kind of plastic bag. When the tail starts to tatter, it's usually along the end of the stripes, you can either have it re-hemmed, or there comes a certain point where it's disrespectful to the flag and you simply have to replace it. The flag is, shouldn't touch the ground, although it is a bit of an urban myth to say that if it does touch the ground, then it needs to be destroyed. The flag code says it exempts, it doesn't indicate that that's a problem. When you display the flag, you typically want to have it illuminated, if it's going to be up for twenty-four hours. Some people think that...that you're only supposed to fly the flag from sunrise to sunset. It's actually considered widespread etiquette and exempted from the flag code, if that if you want to display patriotism, to have illumination on the flag. Illumination doesn't have to be a direct spot light. It can be ambient light, so that street lights, as long as you can recognize stars and stripes, that's considered sufficiently respectful of the American flag. There is a proper method for disposal, when it's time to retire the flag. There's a whole ceremony for disposing of the flag. If you don't want to go through the whole ceremony yourself, I suggest you contact your local scout troupe. They are always looking for flags because there is a merit badge that it available that the kids can earn by taking care of and retiring the flags properly, and that is a quick overview of how to take care of your flag."