Veterans Day is the one national observance where the most common flag mistake is doing something extra. People lower the flag to half staff because the day feels solemn, and it is, but Veterans Day is not a mourning day. It honors the living.
What the Flag Does on November 11
The flag flies at full staff, sunrise to sunset, on November 11. That is the whole rule, and it is worth saying plainly because Memorial Day, which honors the dead, is the day with the half staff convention. Veterans Day honors everyone who served and came home. Lowering the flag for them reads, to a veteran standing in the yard, like being counted among the missing.
If you want to fly the flag after dark, Title 4 of the United States Code says the custom is sunrise to sunset, and that the flag may be displayed 24 hours a day when it is properly illuminated during the hours of darkness. A light on the pole is not decoration. It is the condition attached to flying overnight.
The other thing November 11 asks is that the flag flying is in a fit state to represent anything. We make flags for a living and we can tell you what nine months of weather does to a fly end. If the free edge is frayed into ribbons and the red has gone salmon, the honest move is to retire it and fly a new one, and we have written up how to retire a worn flag properly.
Getting the Size and the Pole Right Before the Day
A flag that is too big for its pole looks impressive for about three weeks and then destroys itself, because the sail area it presents is more than the hardware was engineered to carry. Wind load rises faster than flag size does, so the jump from a 3 by 5 to a 5 by 8 is not a modest one for the truck, the halyard and the snaps.
The working rule most owners want is that the flag length runs roughly a quarter to a third of the exposed pole height, and our flag size guide works through the sizes against real pole heights. If you plan to fly a service flag beneath the national flag on the same halyard, read that guide first, because two flags on one halyard is a materially different load from one.
Service Flags, and Flying Two Flags on One Day
Plenty of families want to fly a branch flag on Veterans Day alongside the national flag, for the service the day is actually about. The order matters. The United States flag goes at the peak, and the service or state flag hangs below it on the same halyard, or flies from a separate staff of the same height at the same size.
Our military and service flags cover the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Space Force and Merchant Marine, along with police, fire and EMS flags for the other services families fly for. The POW MIA flag has its own observance in September and its own display rules, and we keep the POW MIA flag in seven sizes for the households and posts that fly it year round.
The Burial Flag Question, Answered Honestly
A large share of the searching that happens around Veterans Day is not about display at all. It is families asking whether a veteran is entitled to a flag, and the answer is that this is a benefit, not a purchase.
The Department of Veterans Affairs provides a United States flag to drape a casket or to accompany an urn, at no cost to the family, for a veteran or reservist who meets the service criteria. You apply on VA Form 27-2008, and you can hand that application to a funeral director, a VA regional office, or a United States post office. We would rather tell you that than sell you a flag you are already owed.
What the VA does not provide is what happens to the flag afterward. It comes back to a family folded into a triangle and it needs somewhere to live that is not a closet shelf. That is where we come in, with flag cases and markers built to hold a folded flag at the right dimensions rather than approximately.
The cases themselves are a furniture decision as much as a flag one, and our memorial cases come in cherry, oak, maple, poplar and a plastic option so a family can match what is already in the room.
The graveside half is separate again. Our memorial markers cover U.S. Veteran, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Grand Army of the Republic and the Revolutionary Minutemen, and they are what actually identifies a veteran's grave to the next person walking past it.
A Census Bureau report puts the veteran population at roughly 18 million Americans, about 7 percent of the adult population. Most of those families will at some point be handed a folded flag with no instructions attached.
A Word About the Half Staff Question
One thing worth clearing up because it comes round every November.
Half staff is ordered by the President, by a state governor, or by the mayor of the District of Columbia, and the scope of the order tells you which. Veterans Day carries no standing half staff order, which is why the flag flies full staff. Memorial Day carries a different convention entirely, where the flag is at half staff until noon and then raised to full height for the rest of the day.
If a half staff order is in effect on November 11 for an unrelated reason, follow the order. That is the only circumstance in which the flag comes down on Veterans Day, and it is nothing to do with the observance.
One Flag We Made, and Where It Ended Up
We do not usually put ourselves in the middle of a day like this, but there is one flag worth mentioning. The flag three firefighters raised in the rubble at Ground Zero on September 11, 2001, and that Thomas Franklin photographed, was traced back to us and was made here in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. After forensic authentication it was donated to the 9/11 Memorial Museum, where it remains on display. The full account is on our site, told by the people who traced it.
We mention it for one reason. A flag is cloth and thread until somebody decides what it is going to mean, and then it is the most durable object in the room. That is what November 11 is doing.
FAQ
Can veterans still salute the flag?
Yes. Title 4 of the United States Code says that members of the Armed Forces and veterans who are present but not in uniform may render the military salute during the hoisting, lowering or passing of the flag. It is permitted rather than required, and the civilian alternative of standing at attention with the right hand over the heart remains entirely correct.
Can veterans get a free flag?
A burial flag is provided by the VA at no cost to the next of kin or a close friend of an eligible veteran or reservist, and it is the only flag the VA issues as a benefit. It is not a general entitlement to a flag for everyday display, and eligibility depends on when and how the person served.
Can you fly a veteran's flag?
Yes. A burial flag belongs to the family after the service and there is no rule preventing it from being flown. Most families choose not to, because a burial flag is usually cotton and will not survive sustained outdoor exposure, and because folding it back correctly after each display is a job. Flying a durable outdoor flag and keeping the burial flag cased is the more common arrangement.
Is there a veteran flag?
There is no single official veteran flag. Families generally fly the United States flag, the branch flag of the service the veteran belonged to, or the POW MIA flag, and some fly an Honor and Remember flag, which is a private commemorative design rather than a federally recognized one.
