in 2006 I remember noticing that every flag I saw was lowered to half mast. 

A half-mast flag has historically marked instances of national tragedy: a ship lost, the passing of an influential public servant, a space shuttle destroyed. After the events of 9/11, the patriotic zeitgeist expanded the scope of the strong symbolism a half-mast flag carried. Soon, it became apparent that every soldier that fell overseas would cause the flag to fall to half-mast.

Soon enough, it was too inconvenient to raise the flag to the top of the pole, so many were being killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was simply easier to leave all flags lowered at all times.  Once I realized that every flag I saw was at half-mast, perpetually, I started to think about what subconscious effects such a strong symbol would have on the people of America. 

I also realized that eventually these wars would end and these flags would be fully elevated again. But years would have past with the constant, and highly visible, image of the flag bowing to a nameless and ambivalent tragedy; one that our nations' people would no longer recognize as different from the norm. This period of history and it's subconscious effects on the American psyche would be lost, unrecorded in the annuls of history. No one would remember that we lowered the flag for years on end. But we would carry the symbolic effect of that era in our hearts. No one would study the emotional effects of such a burden. It would be lost.  

So I decided to preserve it for posterity. I lowered cocktail American flags to half-mast, submerged them in formaldehyde, and set them into test tubes in a rack for long term preservation. Instructions for ongoing maintenance were attached to a clipboard hung next to the rack.