I agree completely.
BTW, the people who wrote this article don't know their terminology. Reagan's body will lie in "repose" at his Presidential library. It will lie in "state" in the Capitol. And flags only fly at "half-mast" on a ship. I'm going to put this half-mast/half-staff journalistic faux pas right up there with referring to Navy Corpsmen as "medics" (that ticked me off to no end last year when the war was going full swing). You'd think they'd learn the difference!
Is the proper term for land-based flags "half-staffed"? I hear these terms interchangeably.
That's a pet peeve of mine, too, and in the greater sense, we're right. However, I was told by one navy man that even land-based Navy facilities have a 'mast,' on land, and I immediately remembered the one I walked past daily for three years on the campus of CMU in Pittsburgh.
Nonetheless, the vast majority of all land-based flagpoles are 'staffs' and not 'masts.'
LOL, I grew up saying half-mast because dad was a Senior Chief.
Please consider the journalistic implications of some broadcaster mispronouncing "Corpsmen" or a journalist spelling it incorrectly. I mean, who wants to enlist as a Corpse Man?
We have the Navy E-6 wing here at Tinker AFB and their flags will be flying at half mast. Outside their headquarters their flags are located just like it is a ship the people are entering.
Great Lakes Naval Training Facility also has flags outside their facilities just like on a ship. They fly at half mast.