The town manager in Stoughton, Mass., flew a Danish flag
beneath the U.S. flag on the town’s flagpole until an unidentified
veteran told him it was improper to fly the flags of two countries on
the same pole.

Tell that to the International Boy Scout Chalet
(now called the Kandersteg International Scout Centre since girls are
now welcomed) in Kandersteg, Switzerland. I spent 10 days there as a
Scout in 1962 and the rule was that your country’s flag started at the
bottom of the pole when you arrived and moved to the top as other
country’s troops left the chalet. A different troop handled
flag-raising duties each day.

When it became our turn to do it,
the Japanese flag was to go at the top and the U.S. flag second. Our
Senior Patrol Leader, whose dad had spent two years in a Japanese
prisoner-of-war camp, said, “No way I’m putting that flag above Old
Glory.” So we hoisted the U.S. flag to the top and put the Japanese
flag second.

The Japanese troop, of course, protested and the
chalet management got heavily involved. They asked us to redo the flags
but we refused, so the Japanese kids did it. It was my first and only involvement in an international incident.