Do you remember the guy who wouldn’t take down a flag pole on his Virginia property a few years ago?

Now we learn just who that old man was.

In May of 1944, near Carano Italy , Van T. Barfoot, who had in 1940 enlisted in the U.S. Army, set out alone to flank German machine gun positions from which gunfire was raining down on his fellow soldiers.

His advance took him through a minefield but having done so, he proceeded to single-handedly take out 3 enemy machine gun positions, returning with 17 prisoners of war.

And if that weren’t enough for a day’s work, he later took on and destroyed three German tanks
sent to retake the machine gun positions.

That probably didn’t make much news either, given the scope of the war, but it did earn Van T. Barfoot, who retired as a Colonel after also serving in Korea and Vietnam , a well deserved Congressional Medal of Honor.

What did make the news…was his neighborhood association’s quibble with how the 90-year-old Veteran chose to fly the American flag outside his suburban Virginia home. Seems the HOA rules said it was
OK to fly a flag on a house-mounted bracket, but, for decorum, items such as Barfoot’s 21-foot
flagpole were “unsuitable”.

Van Barfoot had been denied a permit for the pole, but erected it anyway and was facing court action unless he agreed to take it down.

Then the HOA story made national TV, and the Neighborhood Association rethought Its position and agreed to indulge this aging hero who dwelt among them.

“In the time I have left”, he said to the Associated Press, “I plan to continue to fly the
American flag without interference.”

As Well he should.

And if any of his neighbors had taken a notion to contest him further, they might have done well to read his Medal of Honor citation first. Seems it Indicates Mr. Van Barfoot wasn’t particularly
good at backing down.

WE ONLY LIVE IN THE LAND OF THE FREE BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE!

AND, BECAUSE OF OLD MEN LIKE VAN BARFOOT!