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WWII veteran Phil Stack has been ordered by his homeowners association to remove |
Phil Stack is a World War II veteran who cooked cherry pies with dough strips on top. Some of the 170 soldiers in his battalion complained that his biscuits were too hard.
Two sandy black-and-white pictures showing a youthful Stack in his Army uniform sit on a bookcase in the one-story home he shares with his wife of 60 years, Ethel.
Stack, 84, is proud of his service and flies an American flag on a 16-foot pole in his front yard on Winthrop Court in Salem Fields subdivision in Spotsylvania County.
That flagpole is now at the center of a controversy. Eight months after he put up the flagpole, the homeowners association has asked him to take it down. He has until Oct. 16 to comply, or he could be fined.
Stack spent 30 months overseas, earning five battle stars with the 202nd Combat Engineering Battalion, Company B. His discharge certificate states he "can bake bread, pies and other pastries" for men in the field and in the garrison.
"I think I deserve to fly my flag," Stack says, sitting next to a Statue of Liberty tapestry that hangs on a white wall in his dining room.
Wearing a blue hat with a D-Day pin, Stack recalls the landing of his battalion on Omaha Beach five days after that bloody battle. He was silly not to carry a weapon when he was rushing food to soldiers, Stack says.
While he tells war stories, his wife brings out a rusting German Mauser rifle her husband found on a battlefield.
"I wonder how many people were killed with that gun," he says, as his smiling wife holds the rifle, practically in a soldier's stance.
But Stack's mind wanders back to the HOA notice.
"It hurt my feelings," he says.
The display of flags and flagpoles has long been a source of conflict between HOAs and residents. Many HOAs prohibit flagpoles to protect community aesthetics.
Stack says his binder of HOA guidelines doesn't contain any language prohibiting flagpoles.
A law President Bush signed last year that gives a resident in a community association the right to fly a flag doesn't give outright permission to use flagpoles.
The Salem Fields HOA property manager, who asked not to be identified, says Stack can attach the flag to his house or garage, and in the notice, she cites the section that prohibits the pole.
"It's not the flag; it's the pole," she says.
Some of the 1,315 residents in the subdivision, including Stack's closest neighbors, have no problem with his display. Stack says one man offered him $100 to keep the flag on the pole.
The neighbor across the street from Stack says the flagpole doesn't bother her.
"He's pretty passionate about it," says Sarah King.
The former history teacher, whose brother just returned from a 15-month tour in Iraq, says it should make a difference that Stack is a veteran.
Maribelle Babis says she wishes Stack could keep the flagpole.
"I don't like to fight against the grain, but I think [the HOA] can be unreasonable about some things," she says.
Stack says he likely will take down the flagpole on Oct. 16.
Dan Telvock: 540/374-5438