In John Ackert's Tallahassee subdivision you will find a lady in a golf cart riding in the neighborhood. Her job is to take notes on how all her neighbors' homesteads measure up to the set standards. These standards have been put in place by the Southwood Residential Community Association.

So far John Ackert has been trying hard not to hate the lady.

Ackert who is an 82-year-old retired Navy commander, once got an official letter. The letter instructed the veteran to remove the military and Special Olympics stickers from his front door, failure to do this will make the veteran to be exiled from the community's tennis courts and swimming pool. The veteran complied and removed the stickers from his front door. 2 weeks later, another letter came that made Ackert and his neighbors get scared. The letter was related to the American flag.

Ackert has his vinyl mailbox covered by the picture of the American flag. Ackert had placed the vinyl on his mailbox a few weeks after he moved into the Southwood community back in 2013. Over the years he has been replacing the colors whenever the colors get burned out by the Florida sun. According to the association of his neighborhood the flag mailbox was a violation of the covenant passed by the community, and so had to be removed. The letter warned the veteran that if he did not comply then he would be fined and ultimately a lien could be placed on his home.  The letter described the vinyl as something that, 'devalues the aesthetic value of the homes in the neighborhood,’

The veteran refused to get rid of the mailbox covering. He has vowed to fight the homeowner's association in court and has gone ahead to accuse the association of bullying him.

When contacted, the manager of the community association, Jerome Simpson, said that they were still having ongoing talks with the veteran and so they were not in a position to give no official comment beyond an emailed statement.

82 year old Ackert, spends his week golfing and looking after his yard, did not expect to be at logger heads with his homeowner's association. Ackert had been drafted for Vietnam, and later opted to take military service as a career. He later decided to specialize in transportation logistics, his job was to make sure that the military property and personnel got to their final destination safely.

He gets the idea that the association wants to have uniformity in the estate, but he is more bothered by the pettiness.  He acknowledges of having minor problems with neighbors, but then they have always been solved by a chat and a handshake, but not with a threatening formal letter drafted by a lawyer.