Etiquette of Service Flag Stars

“The term ‘man’ and ‘enlisted man’ means a person, whether male or female,” according to that act, that settles the matter of sex, Moreover, the act tells us that such persons are all in active service in the military or naval forces of the United States, including non-comissioned and petty officers and members of training camps authored by law.

“If it be aught toward the general good,

Set honor in one eye, and death in the other,

And I will look on both indifferently.” -Shakespeare

Whether or not a woman engaged in war work should have a star on the service flag of her family, the church to which she be- longed or the business where she was employed is a question that has come up for some little dispute. According to the best authorities on the subject sex has nothing to do with it. It is all a matter of kind of service.

The idea is that anybody in military service should be represented on the service flag was the idea of the retired captain who devised the service flag shortly after war was declared. Now in order to discover just who is and who isn't in military service those who have made a study of the etiquette of the service flag go to a certain act of congress relating to war risk insurance in which that body clearly defines just what person in military service really is.

“The term ‘man’ and ‘enlisted man’ means a person, whether male or female,” according to that act, that settles the matter of sex, Moreover, the act tells us that such persons are all in active service in the military or naval forces of the United States, including non-comissioned and petty officers and members of training camps authored by law.

As a matter lot of stars of fact there are service a flags all on over the country that ought not to be there. This does not mean the that persons for whom they were put there are not doing a big bit in the war, but it means that they are not doing what can be called active service in the military or naval forces.

For this reason we ought not to include on service flags stars representing any one on war boards or commissions even when that work takes the person's entire time. Not even Y.M.C.A. secretaries at the front are entitled to be represented since they are not regularly commissioned by the United States Army.

Here is another question that has arisen concerning the etiquette of service flags. Is a person who is serving in one of our Allies’ armies entitled to a place on our service flag if he would be there were he in our own army? That is, may a family with a son in the Canadian army, or a concern with an employee  fighting under the Italian colors, place a star on its banner for that soldier? The answers to that question, according to best authorities, is emphatically yes.— By By Mary Marshall Duffee, 1918

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