SB 56 passed the Senate 47 to 0. It requires United States and state flags on the state capitol to be flown at half-staff for 24 consecutive hours within 30 days of the service related death of an Indiana resident who is a member of the armed forces of the United States or the Indiana National Guard.
I’m just surprised at how often I get to write about Flags! when covering the General Assembly. Who can blame legislators though – you can look like you’re doing something with respect to an emotional situation — flags are pretty much always about emotion — in such a way that you can be pretty sure your fellow legislators won’t vote against you.
Honestly, I wish they would go the other way with this. No disrespect to thte fallen, but I always thought half-staff was for major national mourning. Dead presidents or major leaders such as MLK.
It seems like the flag is at 1/2 staff so much anymore, and MOST of the time I don’t know why.
It plays to a point you have made before, Doug. We do worry to much, and it also appears we mourn too much. Flying the flag at full mast, to me, shows that even as we have bad things happen, we can still be positive.
**Now I also understand why things like this get passed 100%. I feel dirty for writing this, like I don’t care about the fallen armed forces, even though I feel confident what I am writing is correct.
I once heard a serviceman say that if he were killed in action, he wanted them to fly EXTRA flags, at full staff.
When a porn actor dies, we should fly our flags fully, with supplemental staff.
Do we need a staff meeting to resolve this?
I’m surprised this passed. Had I not read who the author was, I would have thought this was introduced by a Democratic Senator as a subtle protest by providing a highly-visible reminder of the local cost of war. If it had been authored with that intention, I guarantee the Senate wouldn’t have passed this bill.
I certainly welcome this bill. Indiana seems to have been hit especially hard in casualties in this war.
Flying flags half staff or full staff, is not going to bring the guy, who lay down his life for his country and men back. Guess the family should get a lot more support from the government in issues like this. Personally if i was a war widow i wouldnt care if the flag was half or full but if i was a home maker i’d expect a job to get me and my kids thro tomorrow.