Medal of Honor recipient draws support in fight for flagpole

A Medal of Honor recipient's date with destiny is on hold.

The board of a Henrico County homeowners association agreed yesterday to extend for a week the deadline for its ultimatum that Col. Van T. Barfoot remove a flagpole from his yard by today at 5 p.m.

"This will give everyone some breathing room," said John K. Honey, a lawyer whose firm is representing the Army veteran of three wars.

Barfoot, 90, was ordered Wednesday by Sussex Square Services Inc. to remove the pole or become subject to unspecified legal action. Barfoot erected the pole after he moved into the community of 87 residences this year knowing he needed approval of the association to do so, according to the board.

Barfoot's dilemma is attracting national attention from news outlets, veterans groups, thousands of residents posting comments on Web sites, and Virginia's two U.S. senators.

At least three Facebook fan pages have been set up in honor of Barfoot, including a fast-growing one with about 5,000 members as of late last night. Barfoot also has been added to the user-generated Wikipedia Web site.

U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., is helping to negotiate a settlement in the case through his staff, and yesterday, U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., urged the homeowners association and its law firm to consider Barfoot's service to his nation.

"I am very disturbed by the treatment that he has received as he attempted to honor our nation by flying the American flag in the front yard of his home," Webb said in a letter addressed to Coates & Davenport, the law firm that ordered Barfoot to comply with the board's orders.

Webb, a combat veteran who fought in Vietnam and a former Navy secretary, said the board's covenants appear to allow a subjective reassessment that would allow "this distinguished combat veteran to honor our nation . . . in keeping with the established traditions, customs and regulations" for displaying the American flag.

Warner expressed a personal regard for Barfoot, who received the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions during World War II. A recitation of his actions says he single-handedly overtook three machine-gun emplacements and captured 17 enemy soldiers during fighting in Italy.

A portion of a state highway in Mississippi, Barfoot's native state, was named in his honor this fall.

Barfoot has said repeatedly that he considers a vertical flagpole the proper, traditional way to fly the flag; he raises the Stars and Stripes each morning and lowers the flag in the evening.

There is no provision barring display of the flag at Sussex Square; but Barfoot erected the pole in direct contravention of a decision by the board that the vertical pole was not aesthetically appropriate.

"This is not about the American flag," the organization said Wednesday. "This is about the flagpole."

American and other flags are flown throughout Sussex Square but on angled poles attached to porches.

A Henrico judge ruled almost a decade ago in a similar dispute in another regulated community that a war veteran violated structural covenants there when he erected a flagpole against the community's policies.

Since then, however, Congress has passed laws forbidding homeowners associations from restricting the display of the flag on residential property.

Virginia law requires that a homeowner living in an association-governed community receive explicit disclosures about covenants.

The applicability of those laws likely is under discussion in ongoing talks among Warner's office, Barfoot and the homeowners association.

In July, according to Margaret Nicholls, Barfoot's daughter, the board dismissed Barfoot's proposal that the right to fly the flag on a vertical pole be restricted only to living Medal of Honor recipients.

"They rejected that," Nicholls said.

Contact Bill McKelway at (804) 649-6601 or bmckelway@timesdispatch.com.

Staff writers Jeff E. Schapiro and Bryan DeVasher contributed to this report.