Marine Vet Wins 20 Year-Fight to Fly American Flag at His Home

A Marine veteran just came out victorious over his homeowners’ association (HOA) in a two-decade-long battle to fly his American flag on his property.

Richard Oulton is a veteran of the United States Marines who put his life on the line to serve his country in the Vietnam War. Afterward, Oulton settled down to live a quiet life in Virginia, and all he wanted to do was proudly fly the American flag that he had risked his life fighting for. Sadly, his HOA told him to take his flag down from his flagpole in 1999, but Oulton was not about to do so without a fight.

ABC7 reported that Oulton immediately began a twenty-year legal battle to fight for his right to fly his flag. In 2003, he lost his case and was forced to take the flag down, but he did not stop fighting. He brought in former Navy Seal and current politician John McGuire to help him out and after two appeals and twenty years, Oulton finally won the right to fly his flag.

To celebrate, Oulton is planning to fly the flag from his military bunker as a tribute to the 749 brothers he lost in Vietnam. His battalion was known as “the walking dead” because it had the highest casualty rate of any single battalion in the history of the Marine Corps.

“It’s one memory I’ve kept. It’s very important to me,” Oulton explained. “It’s kind of a tattered now but…lot of memories.”

“Our men and women in uniform oftentimes risk their life or even sacrifice their life for freedom and I think the least we can do is get a flag pole up so he can remember his brothers,” added McGuire.

It’s despicable that this Marine veteran, who fought so hard for his country, was told for twenty years that he could not fly the flag that hundreds of his brothers died for. We’re glad that he finally came out victorious and we hope that nothing like this happens again in the future. Our veterans have been through Hell and back for our flag and they deserve to fly it with pride whenever they want to do so!