Nick from Ranger UP on HOA's

I buy a lot of stuff from Ranger Up. Its a good oufit, run by veterans, and they are a class act. I met them last April at the milblog conference, and we went out and got drunk together. They are a lot of fun to hang with, and quite frankly, very intimidating in a friendly sort of way.

Nick has weighed in on the Sussex HOA/Colonel Barfoot flagpole issue with the usual sarcastic wit you would expect from someone who has spent some time downrange and understands sacrifice and the importance of honor and tradition.

I offer it here, in its entirety, for your reading pleasure. Please remove all drinks from the area of your computer. We accept no responsibility for damge to any electronic equipment.

Homeowner’s associations are un-American.

I may not agree with my neighbor, Bob, who thinks that having a plastic deer family in his yard is the height of lawn fashion, but I sure as sh** think it is his right to do it. After all, he paid for his home. He pays his taxes. Who cares what I think?

If you really stop and think about it, you have to be an amazingly presumptuous asshat to think that “you know best” when it comes to someone else’s property, especially when it comes to something as subjective as fashion or trends. Don’t believe me? There was a time when most cars were covered in wood, when parachute pants were the norm, and when most everyone you knew had glasses that changed in the sun. In fact, for all I know, Bob is ahead of his time and there is tangible benefit to having a plastic herd out and about.

Now, I live in a neighborhood with a Homeowner’s Association. I pay them dues. They annoy me. But the thing is that the poor slobs that got sucked into the vortex of the organization are decent people trying to do the best they can. They won’t let Bob build his thirty-two foot tall Pink Flamingo out of balsa wood and clothes hangers, but they look the other way for most everything else. In fact, the reason we, as Americans, haven’t yet rebelled against these communist regimes is that for the most part, reasonable heads prevail.

Not so in Henrico County.

The Sussex Square Homeowner’s Association has launched a smug war of douchebaggery against 90-year old Medal of Honor recipient Colonel Van T. Barfoot.

Colonel Barfoot’s Medal of Honor citation is incredible. I will summarize it:

Machine guns were shooting his guys so he threw himself in front of them and killed everyone without dying. Then tanks charged his men, so he threw himself in front of them drawing their fire and disabling them with a bazooka without dying. When the men in the tanks dismounted and attacked his men, he single-handedly killed them and somehow once again didn’t die. Then he put himself into harm’s way through withering fire and saved two wounded men, Good Lord, still without dying.

In short, after reading his citation, and then learning that Barfoot then went on to fight in TWO MORE WARS, if he wants to build a giant phallus shrine or perhaps a paper Mache goat on his front yard, I am the last guy that’s going to get in the man’s way. Society owes him a debt it will never repay.

The Sussex Square HOA, however, is filing suit against Barfoot for violating the HOA’s strict rules and potentially diminishing their home values. His egregious crime? Placing a flagpole in his yard so he can raise the American flag each morning and lower with honors at night.

Seriously you ask?
Seriously.

Somehow, someway, the spoiled, un-American, self-righteous knob jockeys of the Sussex Square HOA wake up every morning, look in the mirror, and say “I’m doing the right thing”. I want someone to punch every last one of them. In fact, just thinking about the situation, makes me want to drink about five red bulls, watch some commie-inspired Hollywood Iraq PTSD film, put “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor” on my iPod and bust through the HOA door, grab the President of the organization and do my best Col. Nathan R. Jessup impression while every vein in my neck seethes red with rage:

“You weep for your lame rules and you curse that flagpole. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: That your existence while tragic, is also meaningless. And Barfoot’s flagpole, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, is righteous as hell. You don’t want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want him on that lawn. You need him there!”

Right about at this point, with my rage at its apex, I’d be waiting, fantasizing even, for some sort of aggressive rebuttal on their part – perhaps even a violent altercation resulting in me standing over their bloody, barely breathing pathetic bodies, Bruce Lee style…content in the knowledge that they had learned a valuable lesson about life and karma.That would never happen, of course.

They’d simply call their lawyers – Coates & Davenport at (804) 285-7000 and cry about the scary infantryman rambling on in their office. Next thing you know, I’d have to install a flagpole so they could take it away from me. After all, they know best.

Good news, Sussex Square HSA! Douchebagistan just added a sub-division and you’re now running it.
Welcome to Douchebagistan.
Now choke yourselves.