How long are you supposed to fly the flag at half mast before going back to regular hight?
Thanks!
Or for as long as you are told to by the Prez or the military. See the flying of flags at half-staff after 9/11/01.
But what if Clinton dies tomorrow and we start flying it at half staff and then Bush dies teh next week? Quarter staff? What if the there is a big fire in the Senate and everybody dies, one 1.268 times ten to the 30th-th staff?
Note that on land, it’s half staff; at sea, half mast.
The President can direct officials at Federal buildings and things under Federal jurisdiction to fly the flag in a particular way for a particular event. If two Presidents died within 30 days of each other I would guess that two 30-day period back to back would be used.
There are of course no laws about what a civillian or private business may or may not do with their flag, but many simply follow the official flag codes linked to by Ice Wolf.
And if you’re flying at half-staff for a reason other than the ones in the official flag code, then you keep it that way for as long as you think appropriate. So far as I know, for instance, astronauts are not metioned in the code, but the flag on campus was half-staff for about a month afterwards.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I think that the flag code does not allow for the flying of flags at half mast unless there is a directive from above. This doens’t count one in my yard, perhaps, but a campus flying flags at half-mast for, say, the death of a campus president is not following the code. Nobody enforces it or much of any other items in the code, but I think that such half-mast flying is not really allowed.
You are right that it doesn’t follow the code, but to say that it isn’t allowed is to misconstrue the purpose of the code. As Ice Wolf’s link states: