Man Retired for Refusing to Lower the Flag for Helms

A supervisor of a state lab was forced to retire after refusing to lower the US and NC flags to honor former Senator Helms after his recent death.

On this particular incident, I can appreciate his stand, but he had a responsibility as a state employee to carry out the Governor's legal orders.

On the practice itself, it seems we fly the flag at half mast for just about anything these days. I can appreciate the tradegy of a mass killing at VT for example, but many people die each week from violence all around the country. Do we fly a flag at half mass for them? How about when a bunch of fire fighters died in a Charleston warehouse fire? How about on an especially bad day in Iraq or Afganistan? My opinion is it should be only the President's call on flying half mast (not governors) and it should be to memorialize true national disasters. The World Trade Center attacks count. Not much else does.