I consider myself a Patriot. I am a Federal Contractor working side by side daily with Federal officers and respect everything that they do and stand for.
I have proudly flown my American Flag every day for years and understand the "rules to flying an American flag".
For about the past year (after some misgivings on my part), because my girlfriend is from Canada and out of respect for her, I agreed to fly an American/Canadian flag that we found in Canada. Because nothing like it is available in America, the Canadian half of the flag is at the upper half and the US Flag is on the lower half.
We have had a lot of compliments on the flag and have also had a neighbor, who was born in Canada, ask us to find one for him.
Today I get a call mid day from my girlfriend telling me that we received an anonymous letter in the mail with a copy of an article telling us how to fly the American Flag with International flags. The sender probably didn't know how to structure a sentence properly to explain themselves.
So, because of this person I came home to find the flag taken down. If it were me, because of the cowardice way this was done, I would put it back up. My girlfriend, however, refuses to put it back up. No wonder some countries dislike Americans.
I realize that everyone has their own opinion and respect that, but........
DON'T BE A COWARD!
- Greg Siedlecki
Greg, As for the "coward"
Greg,
As for the "coward" that sent the anonymous letter...consider for a moment what may have happened if it were sent by a friend. They may have felt that you would have been offended by them bringing this to your attention and that it may have strained your friendship. To send the letter anonymously, they tried to educate without being the "bearer of bad news." Whether a friend or a neighbor, they seemed to not know you well enough to discuss this out in the open.
A flag that is a combination of the two countries probably wasn't appropriate and may have even been considered illegal (I'm not cetain on this point but I recall once reading something about items that represent the flag but are not to standard and not actual flags). And if you are a patriot, one might have questioned that fact by you purchasing a flag which puts the Canadian flag above the American flag. But I applaud your attempt at diplomacy with your girlfriend.
I would ask your girlfriend if it would be ok to fly full flags of both countries and find a way of doing just that. Of course, keeping the height the same so that neither is given prominence over the other...as agreed to by international agreement.
EJ Kowalcyk, fellow patriot