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Friday, August 29, 2014

Large White Stripe On Top - Flag Pole Side

Is there a proper way to hang the British Flag.  You bet there is and I found out the hard way. The large white stripe goes on top and the inside. When I was in the US Air force, stationed at Kindley AFB, Bermuda I was assigned flag duty one day. We were host on the British island and hence had to fly the host flag along with the US flag. As we looked at the flag before we ran it up the flag pole it looked okay to us but as it turned out it was not all right. We had a fifty-fifty chance of hanging it right and we took the wrong choice.
None of us knew the difference of large white strip on top and it had probably been run up the flag pole wrong numerous times before. This particular day the Island Governor just chose to visit the base and of course he noticed it immediately. He really made a big deal out of it which was right since we had hung it upside down - not knowing the difference. Apparently he didn't say anything to our base commander but went through diplomatic channels so it came down to the base commander via channels and gained momentum as it filtered down to us. Didn't take long to get it hung right and everyone properly educated on the RIGHT way to run it up the flag pole.
That was the day the entire base from our commander down was educated on how to properly fly the British flag. Who knew - we didn't but we soon found out..

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