A West Virginia McDonald’s is taking some heat after flying the American flag at half mast and upside-down on Wednesday morning, upsetting passerby and local veterans.
While many think the half-mast part came in due to the election results, flying a flag upside-down is a distress signal, and many in town are puzzled as to why the fast-food chain would allow such a thing to happen.
“I think that’s a stab at us,” said Lou Headman, a local vet, who said the display was disrespectful “It doesn’t make sense why anyone would want to do that. That’s a distress signal, and maybe they didn’t know that, but we know that.”
However, a manager at the restaurant posted to a local news station’s Facebook page, saying that they’d flown the flag at half-mast per corporate request; the owner, Karen Mezan, issued a statement about the incident.
“Unfortunately, a flag cable broke and during the process of trying the fix the flag, it was inadvertently turned upside down. It wasn’t noticed that the flag was upside down until a customer inquired about it. We are working on fixing the flag right now. It’s important to note that this was an accident, not intentional.”
The flagpole has since been fixed, and all flags are flying in the correct position.