(Daily Mail) — A 77-year-old Army veteran is being threatened with legal action for flying the American flag in his front yard.

Fred Quigley, of Macedonia, Ohio, a retired Army chaplain and minister who served active duty during the Vietnam War, has been told his flag violates his homeowners association’s rules on flagpoles.

As an alternative, the association offered to place the flag at the entrance of the development, but Mr Quigley refused.

Mr Quigley said: ‘It’s the principle. It’s about patriotism, and the soldiers I’ve had to hold as they were dying.

‘It’s just important to me to be bold with the flag.

‘If they can dictate to me that I cannot fly an American flag in America, then, to me, the country is lost.’

Mr Quigley’s lawyer Gerald Patronite said the association has no right to stop his client.

He cites a 2003 state statute that addresses the homeowner’s rights in such a dispute.

‘Essentially, no deed restriction or association can abridge this right to display the flag,’ he told AOL Real Estate.