MOSINEE, WI (WAOW/CNN) - For the past five years, Mike Thurs has called this city home. But he was taken aback when in the last couple of months someone started hanging a Nazi flag outside a home.
“Something really odd to see,” Thurs said of the flag, which appeared in what he called a “quiet, peaceful” neighborhood.
But he said there’s nothing he can do.
“Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, and if that’s what his is, then he has every right to feel that way,” Thurs said.
But other residents, like World War II veteran Charlie Valiska, think otherwise.
"To dishonor the American flag by putting up a Nazi flag is just absolutely insane. I don’t know what the hell’s the matter with these people,” said Valiska, who joined the US Navy when he was 16 years old. “I’m floored that anybody would - living in the United States - would put up a Nazi flag."
Mosinee Police received just one complaint about the flag, on Aug. 4, said Chief Ken Muelling.
“There’s nothing in our ordinance or in the state statute that would be a violation,” he said.
Since the incident in Charlottesville, the house is flying an American flag. A woman who was at the home defended the residents' Nazi flag-flying.
“”They’re proud of who they are.” she said, adding that “if homosexuals can fly their flag, so can they."
In the wake of the incident, Thurs said the flag is a chilling reminder.
“Blacks, whites - we’re all equal,” Thurs said. “We have to get along.”
Valiska is incensed.
“Just disgusted with them, the whole bunch down there,” he said of the people flying the flag. “They can’t call themselves an American anymore.”
Neighbors said the flag has not been flown since the incident in Charlottesville. The woman at the home where the Nazi flag was flying said the residents have received online threats.
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