Bob CollinsBased on a letter to the Pioneer Press today, I was expecting a lot worse on St. Paul’s Wabasha bridge when I checked out the American flags on it today.
Tom Staffa of Falcon Heights, a military veteran, questioned the wisdom of putting the dozens of American flags on the bridge.
“The majority of the U.S. flags currently flown on the Wabasha bridge are in a tattered condition,” he wrote. “Allowing the U.S. flag to become tattered and neglected is a shame and needs to be corrected.”
He’s right. The corners of several of the flags are frayed — victims of a non-stop wind in a Minnesota winter. But they haven’t yet reached the point of obvious neglect.
That many of the flags are frayed does not by itself make for a disrespectful display. No flag can survive much of a Minnesota winter.
The U.S. Flag Code actually leaves the condition of the flag to the beholder:
(k) The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.
A ripped or torn flag obviously needs to be replaced. But a flag with frayed edges may not necessarily qualify as disrespectful just because it’s frayed.
Like this, for example.
Or this…
How do you know what constitutes a disrespectful display?
