A Florida veteran who is facing foreclosure for insisting on displaying a small American flag in a flower pot on his front stoop is telling his homeowner’s association to “bring it on.” “The flag is worth fighting for,” 73-year-old Larry Murphree, of Jacksonville, told FoxNews.com Friday. “If they want to foreclose, bring it on. I’m getting calls from all over the county to stand up. That’s what I’m going to do.” Murphree’s homeowners association at Tides Condominium at Sweetwater began hitting him with fines of $100 a day last year for violating his homeowners association’s flag display rules. But instead of paying the fines, Murphree let them pile up – and kept his flag on display. Now he owes more than $8,000, and neither side will budge.
“I just kind of dug in my heels,” he said. “It’s worth fighting for. It’s a small flag but it stands for a big thank you and it shows the love and respect I have for my country.” On Wednesday, Murphree told Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends that his fight for the flag is with the board that runs the association. “I would think if anybody on that board told me they served in the military, I’d have to ask them which side,“ Murphree, who served six years as an Air Force air traffic controller during the Vietnam War, said on the show.
The fight started in 2011 and landed in court a year later where the two sides reached a settlement in which Murphree agreed to display his flag in compliance with association rules. But two weeks later, the board changed the rules, saying flags could only be displayed on a pole outside the garage and that flower pots were only for flowers. Read more: