A photo circulating online allegedly shows a man who painted a U.S. flag on his yard in response to a homeowner’s association rule preventing him from flying one.

Miscaptioned

The photo was posted on Facebook in August 2015 with a caption that read, “They told him he couldn’t fly a flag so he did the next best thing.” The image shows a man waving as he colors a red strip of the flag in his yard. That post has over 50,000 shares as of this writing.

While there have been high-profile reports over the years of HOA’s fining residents for flying flags for various reasons – sometimes with some justification (flagpole too high) and sometimes not (“tired” of seeing it), in this case, the caption is completely false.

The true story behind the photo is that of a man from South Milford, Indiana, named John Morris who painted the flag on a friend’s yard to welcome home their son Chad Davis from the Marines. That story was first reported back in 2001.

Bottom Line

The photo of a man painting his yard to resemble a U.S. flag was not done in response to HOA rules, but to welcome home the son of a family friend on leave from the Marines. The image is 14 years old.