How to raise flags in a military and respectful manner?

[usmcbeta]

Hello I'm curious if anyone knows the proper way to raise and lower flags in a respectful military manner. Im a FAP working as a 5811(MP) and on sundays I have to lower various flags. to name a few , the Colors, POW flag, dont tread on me flag etc.

Last Sunday I had a negative counseling written and 3 months of duty because a retired Gunnery Sergeant was sitting inside his car watching me and another Marine from across the street take down the flags. As we where taking down the flags he yelled at us and said " You treat those flags with respect, you hear me you treat those flags with respect and you do it right or im going to call your patrol supervisor ". and we just said yes sir. and we kept lowering the rest of the flags.

After we finished lowering the flags the retired Gunnery Sergeant dialed his phone and drove away, apparently hes been in Cherry Point forever ,knows everyone on base and is notorious for blowing things out of proportion.He makes a call to one of the higher ups and crap rolls downhill, 20 minutes later I get my butt blasted, I have a negative counseling and 3 months of my sgt's duty.

I started thinking about where did we go wrong. I've done the procedure exactly as I was explained to me. First I face the flagpole reach for the rope, untie it then lower the flag. The other Marine grabs the flag so it doesn't touch the deck and I unhook the flag. Then we fold the flag in a triangular shape and store it away. We follow the same procedure for all other flags with the exception of the Colors. This flag is the last one to be lowered and we face the flag I march to the front of the flagpole and the other Marine marches to the side of the flagpole and as I lower the flag the other Marine salutes showing respect for the colors. then I unhook it we fold it and store it away.

That is the procedure that it the other Marine taught me and he is an actual MP with 3 yrs of service. We where both clueless as to what we did wrong

At the end of the day me and the other Marine where punished with negative counseling, and NCO's piggybacked on the incident and gave us their duty for 3 months. the NCO's could not find written instructions, on how to properly do the raising and lowering of the flags. but we where corrected with what they assumed was right.

I'm still in the dark and I need to know how to do this properly without assumptions or else I'm just going to skate out of this procedure as much as I can.

[josephd]

there is a few different orders out there concerning this, which one is correct I have no idea.

as long as the flag is unfolded and folded correctly with each person in proper position(facing the flag/flag pole, at attention, saluting when necessary) and it doesn't touch the ground I would say you're good.

Respectfully obviously I would tell your NCO/Sgt to find the exact order they want you to use and then train you on that. Until that is done there is no reason you should get an official negative counseling for it. Without throwing anyone under the bus/being a buddy f****r, I would bring this issue up with your SNCOIC to be sure your NCO's are training you and other Marines properly before ripping into them about something they don't know about and can't fix.

[Tennessee Top]

I've been in a number of color ceremonies and can't see where you did anything wrong. There are flag manuals normally at places where you can purchase flags; they cover such things as how to properly display and destroy the flag but not sure if they cover raising and lowering one in a military manner. There may be a Base Order or Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) covering the details but I'm sure it's written somewhere (this is where your NCO's/SNCO's should be able to help you find it). There may also be something in the Officer of the Day's SOP.

I agree with josephd on this one. Just because somebody complained about something does not automatically mean you messed up and should be punished. How can you correct your mistakes if nobody can tell you what you did wrong? You need to take this up your chain of command until you feel right about it (that means requesting mast if that's what it takes). I would think your 1stSgt should be able to get to the bottom of it. If everything you say is accurate, sounds to me you are getting the big green weenie for no good reason. Your 1stSgt may also be interested to know about your NCO's giving you THEIR duty for 3 months (if that's even possible since you're not a NCO yet). At the very least, a review of the training required for color details in your unit should be conducted and this training should be documented somewhere. Nobody should be assigned to the color detail until this training has been completed and properly documented.

A couple of points you should be aware of. In the military, we refer to the US flag as the national ensign or the colors. One of the rules of this site is proper spelling/punctuation. When posting here, you should not be writing as if texting on your smartphone. That means the words I and Marine are always capitalized. Failure to abide by the rules of this site will get you temporarily suspended. You have been fairly warned.

I would be interested to hear how this situation gets squared-away.

[kbay0351]

Back in '95 I was on a fap the the MPs and got to raise/lower the flag a couple of times. There were 3 of us, and we had to be very careful... <br />
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Sometimes our Ssgt watch controller was hiding in his...