STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER

By RICHARD L. BOCCIA

For experts, Flag Day is a time to educate

The official Flag Code was adopted by Congress in 1942.

For John Janik, Flag Day means more than just celebrating a pattern of red, white and blue that’s instantly recognizable around the world.

The history of the American flag symbolizes the heritage of America in the grandest terms, and for flag experts, today’s holiday is when they get many opportunities to explain ways to honor Old Glory with the proper flag etiquette.

Janik is president of the National Flag Foundation, which runs a flag museum about a mile from the birthplace of Flag Day in Waubeka, Wis.

Though honoring the flag became a tradition in many places across America, said Janik, Waubeka is confirmed as the place of origin of Flag Day by congressional resolution. Janik is an example of how Waubeka remembers that tradition.

“A 19-year-old teacher named Bernard Cigrand had his students write essays about what the American flag meant to them,” Janik said. That was in 1885, at the Stony Hill School.

Waubeka’s modern Flag Day celebration replicates Cigrand’s essay competition.

“The essays that come in here, they’ll send a shiver up your back,” Janik said.

The compositions are part of a larger public event that includes a 150-unit parade comprising all branches of the military, said Janik, who’s worked at the foundation in Waubeka for 18 years. The celebration also features demonstrations of flag etiquette.

One of the questions Janik fields most often about how to fly the flag is about the proper way to hang the stars and stripes over the street.

The general rule is to keep the field of stars to the flag’s own right, which means keep “the union to the North in an East and West street, or to the East in a North and South street,” to quote the Flag Code.

These rules are a nonbinding part of the United States Code, which similarly instructs that no one can stand to the right of a flag.

Flag etiquette is complicated enough to warrant its own experts.

Mike Buss is one such stars-and-stripes specialist. He works as the assistant director at National Headquarters of the American Legion, which calls itself the pre-eminent expert source of information on the Flag Code.

“Can you fly the flag at night?” is a typical question Buss answers. He says yes, as long as the flag is visible from ambient light, such as the moon. Otherwise, there should be a source of illumination.

Though Buss holds the flag sacred, he’s pragmatic about the code.

The requirement that a flag that has touched the ground must be destroyed is a myth, he said, but it stems from real rules about keeping the flag clean and aloft. Those instructions are about respect, he said.

Despite the substantial symbolic meaning of the flag, it’s still a piece of fabric, or, in modern times, all-weather synthetic material. That means it’s OK to wash, dry clean or even repair the flag.

“If a flag’s got a slight tear, nothing says you can’t sew it back up,” Buss said.

Other parts of the Flag Code, which was first written in 1923 and adopted by Congress in 1942, are a bit out of date, said Buss.

For instance, Fourth of July celebrants everywhere unknowingly violate the code if they use napkins that reproduce the flag. The code says that the flag should never be “impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard.”

Still, Buss argues that the code could be relaxed on the point of napkins.

“That’s not really a flag,” he said of such flag images. “A flag is something you put on a pole and hoist into the air.”

Of greater importance to Buss is that Americans remember the flag.

“We would hope they’d fly it every day,” he said, speaking for the American Legion. “A lot of people tend to forget that June 14 is Flag Day. There’s no fireworks like you see on July Fourth.”