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Half-Mast

1/7/2018

19 Comments

 
Picture

​The New Year has finally arrived, and with it, a promise of new beginnings. 

Still, I’m thinking back to a recent conversation.

But first, a little background.

For the last few months, I’ve been working part-time as a substitute teacher’s aide at a nearby middle school.
It’s a way to stay actively engaged with the world—something that solitary writing on a laptop in a home office
doesn’t much do—and, too, it’s an opportunity to support kids who need a little extra attention. 

Anyway, part of my schedule includes yard duty, where I often chat with the head custodian. 

He has been at this school for more than a decade, and in all honesty, probably knows more of what really goes on around campus than anyone else. In any case, I asked him if he thought the school had flown the American flag out front at half-mast (sometimes called half-staff) this past year more frequently than other years. (Since he’s in charge of raising the Stars and Stripes every school day morning, he knows.) 

He paused a moment before answering, and then said he was pretty sure the number was higher than he had ever seen.  In fact, he went on, it seemed that the flag had flown at this mourning position nearly as frequently as full mast.

Of course, flying our flag at his particular resting point has been around nearly as long as the United States has been
in existence. 

One of the earliest instances was in 1799, when the U.S. Navy ordered all of its vessels to “wear their colours half mast high” to recognize the death of George Washington.  Some scholars say that lowering the United Sates flag makes room for the invisible “flag of death”—flying the flag exactly one width lower than its normal position to emphasize that “death’s flag” is flapping right above it.

Half-mast days in 2018 will include May 15, which is Peace Officers Memorial Day; two weeks later, there’s the more well-known Memorial Day that honors our fallen soldiers.  Then there’s September 11, when we remember 9/11.  And of course, December 7 is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.  State governors can also proclaim half-mast days, such as the time when then New Jersey governor Chris Christie ordered flags to fly at half-mast to honor Whitney Houston, one of that state’s famous natives.   

Yet many half-mast days in 2017 had nothing at all to do with patriots and holidays and celebrities.
 
But they had everything to do with the epidemic of mass shootings in America. 

In fact, the web site Mass Shooting Tracker—that such a site even exists gives me pause—lists an astounding 427 mass shooting incidents in the United States last year, with four alone occurring on December 31. (To clarify, this site defines mass shooting as a violent incident in which four or more persons are shot, although not necessarily killed.  This is not the same as mass murder, a term the FBI uses, which is three or more persons killed.) 

And while a good many of these fatalities made nary a blip on our national radar, I can say with confidence that I bet every victim had at least one friend, one family member, or one colleague whose grief was fierce and horrible and inconsolable.    

There were also those mass killings that—at least I hope—continue to numb us to the bone.

Perhaps the most senseless (although really, aren’t they all?) was the Las Vegas  shooting, where a successful-on-paper, professional gambler (no need to mention a name) watched an outdoor country music festival from a high-up-in-the-sky, high end hotel room.  He then indiscriminately opened fire, killing 58 people and injuring 546 more. 
​
This one especially hit home because my husband’s youngest adult daughter and her spouse had been planning to attend the event. 

They ended up staying home at the last minute, but many of their friends went to the show.  For those witnesses, the sheer terror of that night hasn’t gone away, and on some level, will probably never end.  

After that nightmare night, the flag at the middle school seemed to be at half-mast for days.

The second most awful multiple shooting of the year was in the tiny Bible belt town of Sutherland Springs, Texas.  There, on the first Sunday in November, a gunman armed with a military-style rifle and clad in all black (again, no name needed) opened fire on a church congregation.  Twenty-six people lost their lives that morning; most of the victims were small children. 

Once again, the flag at the middle school was at half-mast for a while.

There were also eight ambush style police officer assassinations (including that of New York City cop Miosotis Familia, a 12-year veteran of the force, shot in the head in her patrol vehicle while on duty), as well as the usual domestic violence killings (including four dead on August 24, in Bloomington, California).  And always, there were those disgruntled employees and former employees, opening fire at their workplaces (one, on October 18, resulted in three fatalities in Edgewood, Maryland). 
 
Of course, the middle school flag wasn’t in a half-mast position every single day last year.   

But if every mass shooting in 2017 had been remembered with a lowered flag, it would have been.
​
Will this year bring less shooting deaths?  Feel free to comment on the flag, gun control, mass shootings, patriotism and what half-mast means to you.  All thoughts are welcomed and appreciated. 
19 Comments
Larry Grant
1/7/2018 03:30:06 pm

This was a tough read. I drive past our town’s sheriff’s post almost everyday.
A close friend is a captain at Firehouse No.1 in the nearby town where I’m a high school teacher.
Oh yeah. There’s the high school I’m at every school day. We not only have a flag but have kids who see the news broadcasts or the flag at half staff then ask “why?”
We live in such a broken world.

Reply
Hilary
1/7/2018 04:03:38 pm

Working at a business and/or enterprise that has a flag is definitely a wake-up call because it is *right there*... in our faces.

Reply
kerri fisher
1/7/2018 05:05:20 pm

Wow, somber indeed. I wish I had a magic wand or a magic genie lamp. I would take away all the sadness, anger and depression that turns these people into killers.

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Hilary
1/7/2018 06:37:00 pm

What a wonderful world that would be. xo

Reply
leslie spoon
1/7/2018 07:37:07 pm

Hilary Thank you for writing about this subject. Not enough is said about it. I cannot get over how violent this country has become. Is this our culture now? We can thank the gun lobby for a lot of this. Where does all the hatred and anger come from? We have become a very sick country.

Reply
Hilary
1/7/2018 08:12:10 pm

Guns have been around forever, and ours is also a country formed on violence. Think of the Wild West! But times aren't what they were then, and w/ different times should come other rules. We have had a modicum of gun control, but there are so many loopholes in the laws that I don't know how much difference it has made. I believe that some lives have been saved, but not enough... not enough.

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Alicia
1/7/2018 08:30:47 pm

Thank you Hilary for your thoughtful article. I wonder often how it is that we’ve evolved to this. How crazy is it that assault rifle ownership and background check should be controversial. Our founding fathers must be turning in their graves over our interpretation of the right to bear arms!

Reply
Hilary
1/7/2018 08:54:49 pm

I am in complete and utter agreement w/ every point you've made here.

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Susan Jordan
1/7/2018 10:15:35 pm

I'd like to see assault rifles not only taken off the market, but made illegal for ordinary citizens to own or have possession of. Reagan didn't want civilians to have them, and neither do I. I'm also just old enough to remember the days when people had guns but weren't killing each other left and right with them. You could get guns by going into Sears, for crying out loud! Something seemed to shift in the 1980s. I wish for those old days.

Reply
Hilary
1/8/2018 07:58:28 am

It began to change w/ the Texas bell tower shooter in 1966, 11 people were killed by this sniper. I was old enough to remember that everyone thought (and they were right) that the shooter was severely mentally ill, and this was a unique anomaly. Then, it REALLY began to change after the San Ysidro McDonald's massacre in 1984. Twenty-one people were killed; 19 others were injured. The perp was killed by a SWAT team. Columbine, of course, took it to a new level because the killing venue was a high school. In the mid-60s, my husband was a member of the rifle club at his Ohio high school; he would carry his rifle to school! There has, obviously, been a definite shift, w/ a lot of factors to explain that shift. But making assault rifles illegal across the board (they were once illegal in California) would help, I think. And folks who need their guns for hunting can still have them.

Reply
Nathaniel Blair
1/8/2018 10:26:33 pm

This was a very well written blog. It drew me in and kept me engaged. There were a few points where I was almost lost through personal conflict points, but no author can avoid that. Overall a good blog, though one that affects me minorly, as my most tragic loss was from a single murder. Thank you for your time and writing beauty.

Reply
Hilary
1/9/2018 03:57:06 pm

Gosh, *thank you* for discovering my blog! More often than not, my posts are whimsical and light hearted. But I've also written about suicide, a very bad car crash and serious illness (all from personal experience). This particular topic is one that I needed to address for the beginning of 2018. Again, thank you for reading!

Reply
Carol Roberts link
1/9/2018 11:31:02 am

The one thing we can all do (in addition to volunteering as you do) is look inward and ask, "How good am I at forgiving someone who hurts me or someone I love?" Make that a goal and see how long it takes before you're tested!

Reply
Hilary
1/9/2018 04:10:02 pm

OH, and the work I do is a paid position. Several qualifications needed to do the work, as well as a willingness (which I have, in spades!) to work with this population of great kids!

Reply
Hilary
1/9/2018 04:07:38 pm

We will probably agree to disagree on this, which is fine, but I don't think that every person deserves to be forgiven in this world. If one of my family members was ever violently assaulted, especially sexually, and then died as a result of those injuries, I can't imagine forgiving that person. But, others have, and do. I just read today about a woman who was raped, and over time, forgave her attacker.

Reply
Jim Nolt
1/15/2018 01:30:19 pm

Back in 2006 a man walked into an Amish school not far from where I live and shot ten little girls, aged 6 - 10. According to his reasoning, the shooting was pay-back to God for allowing his own child to die (after surviving for only 20 minutes after her birth nine years earlier). Guns and twisted thinking... a frequent and deadly combination.

https://lancasterpa.com/amish/amish-school-shooting/

Reply
Hilary
1/15/2018 07:20:41 pm

I remember this one, too. It's such a conundrum, too, because how can you drag a grown man to a mental health clinic if he thinks he's fine, and is simply paying back a wrong he feels was done to him? The twisted thinking, I also think, isn't going to vanish. So, the assault weapons have to go. Period. I am more ambivalent about all guns, because I do know people who use them for hunting for food.

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Andrea Peck
2/18/2018 09:55:39 pm

Timely post, Hilary. Keep them coming with your keen insights! We need people to continue to speak honestly on this topic.

Reply
Hilary
2/19/2018 10:33:19 am

And since this was posted, Parkland happened. I hope that the students will be able to accomplish what we adults have been unable to do.

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    Hilary Roberts Grant

    Journalist, editor, filmmaker, foodie--and a clown! 
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