Letter from MAAF Member regarding flag folding ceremonies - Nov 03

The following is a letter from MAAF member Chris Anderson regarding a religious flag folding ceremony often passed off as the "Official" ceremony to accompany the folding of the American Flag.

After researching numerous military regulations and directives as well as U.S. code, I am unable to find any official meaning to the individual folds as stated in this ceremony. Sources of the information regarding this ceremony refer to the United States Air Force Academy web page. I contacted the USAFA protocol office in December 2002 concerning this very ceremony. After months of research and internet correspondence, the USAFA replied that this is not an official ceremony and that its origin is unknown. The USAFA has now removed this version of the ceremony from its web site.

When people have questions concerning official ceremonies involving our flag, they turn to official .gov or .mil web sites for the answers. The proper perception is that only legitimate information should be posted on a .gov address. It is obvious the intent of your site is to provide accurate information to the people. You believed us.usafa.af.MIL to be a reliable source of information, just as others will quote your site as a reliable source of official information. In order to ensure this religious flag-folding ceremony is not portrayed as an official government-sponsored flag-folding ceremony, I ask you to remove it from your .gov site.

Below is a list of documents I searched in regards to the ceremony. The Air Force conducted its own search of documents after I contacted them in December 2002.

Army Regulation 840-10
Army Regulation 600-25
Field Manual 22-5
US Code, Title 36, Chap 10
US Code, Title 4, Chap 1

Chris Anderson