Half-mast inflation has been going on for a long time.
I’m OK with honoring anyone who serves the country in that position. It isn’t easy.
Unless they are convicted criminals.
Half mast inflation started as an Iraq war protest by governors in leftist states. Every time a soldier died, half mast again.
It wasn’t to honor the fallen, it was meant to humiliate Bush, point out his mistakes, and turn people against the war. The VERY last thing it was intended to do was honor the fallen.
Can anyone imagine in WWII, Korea, or Vietnam going to half mast every time a grunt goes down? It would have been half mast several years at a time.
As for me, if some unfortunate event makes me newsworthy and I get my corpus delecti shot off while taking out a band of Al Qeida* frogmen assaulting Hoover dam*, I don’t want any half-mast flags. I want that thing up high, tall and proud!!!
* (I realize we are now allies of Al Qeida after we switched sides in Libya and Syria)
* (I realize Hoover dam is an environmental crime and many believe it should be blown up anyway to drain Lake Mead, free the Colorado River, and return the west to a pastoral, agrarian state without electricity.)