New flag?

[Puke]

Not that anyone but me would actually care, but the Massachusetts Flag in that chart is wrong.

So it is! The Georgia flag is outdated also. Stoopid internet.

[error]

You can't believe everything you read on the Internet!

(Nor everything you see in so-called documentary movies, or read in books, ...)

[Puke]

You can't believe everything you read on the Internet!

(Nor everything you see in so-called documentary movies, or read in books, ...)

Yes, damn our perception of reality. 

[TylerM]

The point given to me while in the Air Force Auxiliary was we are never retreating, only advancing. Thus the flag flutters backwards.

[Phil]

It's a perfect example of how screwed up our government has become if they can't even display our nation's flag properly.
I've got more at www.fixourflag.org if anyone wants to check it out.

This is nothing new. The flag has been displayed this way on cops and aircraft for decades. At least as far back as 1998. That's when I remember asking a cop why the flag was "backwards" on their uniforms. I was in the back of a squad car at the time. 
It is simply a way of representing a flag as though it were a real flag blowing in the wind as seen from the right.

At the bottom of the page of this link is a good explanation.
http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/patch.asp

This sounds a lot like the folks that get all bent out of shape over an upside down US flag. They just don't know what it means.

Edit: I was just looking at the Fix Our Flag webstie and right their on the home page they have it all wrong.

This effort is in response to the backward American Flag added to the Army field uniform on February 3rd of 2005 by the Secretary of the Army, General Peter J. Schoomaker, United States Army Chief of Staff, under Regulation 670-1 (chapter 28, Wear and Appearance of Army Uniforms and Insignia, which authorizes the wear of the reverse: side full-color U.S. Flag cloth replica on utility and organizational uniforms on a permanent basis). Unfortunately in doing this, General Schoomaker overstepped his authority while at the same time increasing the danger to our troops. Rank, insignia, and unit patches are "subdued" on camouflaged uniforms in order for our troops to remain unseen by the enemy. Incorporating a brightly colored flag on our soldiers' field uniform gives the enemy a target.

What Schoemaker did was just make the US Flag standard wear on all US Army uniforms. Before this, the US Flag was worn only on the uniforms of soldiers overseas in countries like Bosnia and Germany. Since the Army will be at war for the foreseeable future the regulation was changed because all soldiers are being deployed over and over again. This just makes it easier on the soldier and the supply chain. No more taking the flag on and off every time the soldier comes home and gets deployed six months later.
With the new Advanced Combat Uniform the  process is even easier due to the addition of velcro patches. As stated in the above paragraph " Incorporating a brightly colored flag on our soldiers' field uniform gives the enemy a target." This is true. Which is why when a soldier is in the field he usually either takes off the Flag and Unit insignia, or replaces it with the IR sensitive version of the flag patch.
This point is rather moot though, soldiers don't hide in jungles in the current war. They trundle down roads in armored vehicles. You can't camouflage yourself when patrolling down the streets of Baghdad.

Sorry for the long post. I have a bit of intimate knowledge in this topic.

Please don't start defending the backward flag. You wouldn't hang it on the wall that way, or see it in a book that way, or use it next to an Olympic athelete's name that way, and it's certainly not the way it was designed.



Of course it has a backside, but you wouldn't use your backside as the image to represent yourself would you?

[dan_sayers]

Phil expressed my thoughts on the matter. If it really is blowing in the wind, you can't fix one's perception. When you are willfully siting down to design a patch, you have all the control over it and can simply do it right out of respect for it, those who respect it, and all that it represents. Well, used to anyways

[J’raxis 270145]

Phil, they do use the correct-facing flag on the other side. From the Snopes article:—

The Army actually has two authorized flag patches, one to be worn on the left shoulder, with the canton facing left, and another "reverse field" patch worn on the right, with the canton facing right.

So it really is most likely about making it look like the flag is flying out behind the soldier, with the wearer of the uniform as the flagpole, so to speak.

[KBCraig]

The "backwards flag" isn't just irritating to me when displayed on a uniform. It's also irritating when they flip the flag over to display it vertically. In small-minded lawyer-think, they obsessed on keeping the blue field in the upper left corner, which means showing the back of the flag. Every other flag is simply rotated 90 degrees clockwise. It was the same for the U.S. flag until (I think) 1975, when they decided to add a 180 degree spin.

[Phil]

Unfortunately they don't use a flag patch on the left, only the stand alone backward one on the right. If they had one on each shoulder to represent both sides as they do on cars and planes, I could accept that. However, they don't. They just use a backward flag, and that's not the way it was inteded to represent our country.

[Puke]

Whatever, I was just trying to explain the realities of the subject.
If you have some pet-peeve about how the military, firefighters, and police wear a flag on their right arm then be my guest.
I frankly, don't give a shit.

[RattyDog]

I care. I care because I love my flag, it is a symbol of my country....the fact that we are wearing it backwards is almost funny....considering that most people who are running this country are doing things backwards.

Nothing is sacred....not our liberties, not our lives....not our flag. It means something, our flag, it is a reminder of our traditions and history...and those things are important. We need now to remember where we come from more than ever, as our history of being freedom lovers is floating further and further behind us, seemingly meaning less with each passing president. Now IS the time to be sticklers about stuff like this.

[lildog]

Knowledge is power.

Not that anyone but me would actually care, but the Massachusetts Flag in that chart is wrong.

Hmmm, that's news to me.  I thought the MA flag was a picture of a voter punching them self right in the face.

[enloopious]

I seem to recall hearing something about this before. I think the flag facing left means the state is 'at war' and when it faces right it is at peace. Of course upside down means that the state is in trouble and to send help. That is how I display my flag.

[JustUs]

I care. I care because I love my flag, it is a symbol of my country....

Correction - it's a symbol of the nation state that rules a conquered country!

the fact that we are wearing it backwards is almost funny....

Speak for yourself sista' - I don't wear the flag of any rulers.

Nothing is sacred....not our liberties, not our lives....not our flag. It means something, our flag

It may be yours to swear allegiance to (see allegiance = a duty of fidelity said to be owed by a subject or a citizen to his state or sovereign)

... it is a reminder of our traditions and history...and those things are important. We need now to remember where we come from more than ever, as our history of being freedom lovers is floating further and further behind us, seemingly meaning less with each passing president. Now IS the time to be sticklers about stuff like this.

It's a reminder of how we have been taken over and enslaved.

Now IS the time to be a stickler - WE DON' NEED NO STINKIN' FLAGS!!!

[Phil]

So, you're saying that you're a native american indian who was born here several hundred years ago?