[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 27]
[House]
[Pages 35822-35823]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1015
                     THIRTEEN-FOLD FLAG RECITATION

  (Mr. BROUN of Georgia asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Veterans service organizations across the 
Nation often provide funeral honors at national cemeteries, including 
the folding and presentation of the flag, the recitation of the flag-
folding steps, and playing of Taps.
  As you may know, for a very brief period recently, the Veterans 
Affairs prohibited the flag-folding step, known as the 13-fold flag 
recitation, at funerals. In response to national outrage, the

[[Page 35823]]

VA issued a letter to all cemetery directors in the National Cemetery 
Administration that states that 13-fold flag recitation will be allowed 
at veterans' funerals.
  While I commend this decision, the policy will allow employees and 
volunteers to recite the ceremony only if requested by the veterans' 
grieving family members. Families should not have to remember to 
request the 13-fold flag recitation. The recitation of flag-folding 
steps should be proactively offered.
  The choice to have the flag-folding ceremony read aloud should belong 
to the family of the deceased. That is why today I am introducing a 
resolution that requires the VA to offer families the choice of whether 
or not to have the ceremony and let the decision rest with the families 
and not with the bureaucrats here in Washington.

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