No one is taking care of the flags. I went out at sunrise to lower the flags of the town on town property to half-mast, except for one, hoping that the guys there will be shaken from stupor and do the necessary. We will see.
The flag is lowered slowly in remembrance of the dead.
The flag goes back up at Noon in honor of the veterans who are yet living.
I won’t be able to raise them at Noon as we have the Traditional Latin Mass at Noon today, but the intention is free, so this Holy Mass will be offered for all the fallen in war. Blessings upon them all.
Early this afternoon I’ll see if I can’t get them raised again if no one else beats me to it.
A friend and I might get a bucket truck to see if we can’t change out the ropes on a few of the poles, as the a couple of the ropes are terribly frayed, powdery, rotted, already broken and knotted… Grrr…. There will probably be insurance problems. Sigh.
As far as that goes, maybe I’ll be arrested for trespassing and vandalism for having lowered the town flags to half mast in honor of our fallen in war. Oh, I forgot, we got rid of our police altogether.
If there is no one to lower the flags in your town, why not YOU do this? Right now if you can…
ARISE! LET US BE GOING! 
Not knowing the history of America’s Memorial Day and being the history nerd that I am I decided to look it up and discovered it goes back to the 1860s. Australia was still a colonial entity at that time, not becoming a nation until 1901. Consequently, Australia’s memorial-type days only came into being with the 1st World War: ANZAC Day (25th April) and Remembrance Day (11th November). Returned men and current members of the military march in towns and cities across the nation on ANZAC Day, and the current servicemen in attendance take care of lowering and raising the flag.
If you have returned men and sons, grandsons or great grandsons of returned men in your area, might one of the military bases in North Carolina be willing to come for your Memorial Day, march with returnees and/or their descendants, and take care of lowering and raising the flag?
My sons, beginning in their teens, used to attend the dawn service at the cenotaph (war memorial) here in our rural city on ANZAC Day, attend Mass to pray for the fallen in war and march with returned men later in the morning.
During the march, our old soldiers wear their medals on the left over their heart while the children and grandchildren of those now dead wear their father’s, grandfather’s or great grandfather’s medals on the right to signify they are marching in a loved one’s stead. (My elder son wore my grandfather’s WWI medals and my younger son wore my father’s WWII medals.) It seems a good way to remember (and so pray for) and honour the men who went to war for us.
I’ll work in this. And actually, the USMC asked me to help them with something like this.
Father, I thought you might like to see the following video from 1:16 of an Anzac Day March in rural Australia.
Not everyone marching has medals to show (medals not yet found, donated to a war museum or sold due to financial difficulties ).
Two boys interviewed in this video are wearing their pops’ (grandfathers’) medals, and a young returned man has medals on both sides of his chest – being pinned on the left indicating his own medals and those pinned on the right side indicating those belonging to a father / grandfather /great-grandfather.
Any returned man too old or infirm to march rides in a vehicle.
Some current members of the military also march but are apparently too far back in the above video to be seen.https://youtu.be/YcFkbhsh7-U?t=76
Additionally, a fly-over is often arranged when an Air Force base is nearby.