{"id":1240,"date":"2011-12-02T18:20:18","date_gmt":"2011-12-02T23:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/W3\/?p=1240"},"modified":"2011-12-02T18:34:16","modified_gmt":"2011-12-02T23:34:16","slug":"land-of-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/land-of-free\/","title":{"rendered":"Land Of Free"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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Remember the guy who wouldn’t take the flag down?<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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You might remember a news story several months ago about a crotchety old man who defied his homeowners association and refused to take down the flagpole on his property and the large flag that flew on it.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Now you can find out who, exactly, that old man was.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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On June 15, 1919, Van T. Barfoot was born in Edinburg — probably didn’t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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make much news back then.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Twenty-five years later, on May 23, 1944, near Carano, Italy, Van T. Barfoot,<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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who had enlisted in the US Army in 1940, set out to flank German machine gun<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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positions from which fire was coming down on his fellow soldiers. He advanced<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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through a minefield, took out three enemy machine gun positions and returned<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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with 17 prisoners of war.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/object><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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If that wasn’t enough for a day’s work, he later took on and destroyed three<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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German tanks sent to retake the machine gun positions.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/object><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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That probably didn’t make much news either, given the scope of the war, but it<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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did earn Van T. Barfoot, who retired as a colonel after also serving in Korea and<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Vietnam, a Congressional Medal of Honor.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/object><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/object><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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What did make news was a neighborhood association’s quibble with<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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how the 90-year-old veteran chose to fly the American flag outside his suburban<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Virginia home. Seems the rules said a flag could be flown on a house-mounted<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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bracket, but,\u00a0 for decorum, items such as Barfoot’s 21-foot flagpole were<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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unsuitable.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/object><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/object><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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He had been denied a permit for the pole, erected it anyway and was facing court<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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action if he didn’t take it down. Since the story made national TV, the<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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neighborhood association has rethought its position and agreed to indulge this<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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old hero who dwells among them.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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“In the time I have left I plan to continue to fly the American flag without<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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interference,” Barfoot told The Associated Press.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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As well he should.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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And if any of his neighbors still takes a notion to contest him, they might want to<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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read his Medal of Honor citation.\u00a0 It indicates he’s not real good at backing down.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/object><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Van T. Barfoot’s Medal of Honor citation:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/object><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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This 1944 Medal of Honor citation, listed with the National Medal of Honor<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Society, is for Second Lieutenant Van T. Barfoot, 157th Infantry, 45th Infantry:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/object><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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WE ONLY LIVE IN THE LAND OF THE FREE…<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE! AND, BECAUSE OF OLD MEN LIKE VAN BARFOOT.\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n

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Remember the guy who wouldn’t take the flag down?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}