Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

'It's the next biggest thing'

A soldier is bewildered by the reaction to a sign that violates the deed restrictions in his Westchase neighborhood.

By STEPHANIE HAYES
Published April 19, 2006

TAMPA - David Kelley just wanted to leave his wife something to remember him by when he deployed to Iraq. So last November, he ordered a ribbon-shaped "Support Our Troops" sign for the couple's front yard.

He never imagined the commotion the little sign would cause by the time he returned to Tampa five months later.

"I just figured it would be okay, that nobody would make a big deal about it," Army Pfc. David Kelley said Wednesday, when he arrived from Iraq on a 15-day leave. "Next thing you know, it's the next biggest thing."

The sign, which still sits in the yard in the northwest Hillsborough's Westchase subdivision, violates the community's deed restrictions. Westchase's neighborhood association said it supported the troops, too, but allowing Stacey Kelley's sign to stay could open the floodgates for other banned signs.

The battle lines were drawn and the TV cameras rolled in.

The Kelleys' story was on Good Morning America, CNN and AOL's welcome page. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart came to Westchase to film a segment, scheduled to air at 11 p.m. Thursday on Comedy Central.

While he was deployed, David Kelley couldn't grasp the situation's magnitude.

"For a while, I didn't even know anything was going on because of the time delay," he said. "(Stacey) said "it's all over the news,' and I didn't see it. Your news comes on when I'm in bed."

He finally saw the CNN news clip online. His wife sent him Web links to news stories. He showed them to fellow soldiers, saying "Look, this is what my wife is doing."

He is proud of his wife. Still, he wondered aloud Wednesday whether leaving the sign up the best choice.

"Part of me wants her to keep doing it, because it matters, and another part is like, "Why did you do it?' Because it just brings undue attention," he said. "We've got stress already. We don't need any more. It's just a mixed feeling about it."

Stacey Kelley's mother, Gloria Nelson, owns the house. Nelson supports her daughter and has agreed to keep the sign up, despite a potential fine of $1,000 per month.

Daryl Manning, the Westchase association's president, said Nelson has not yet been fined because Stacey Kelley had offered to take the sign down when her husband came home on leave.

"We hope he'll have an opportunity before he returns (to Iraq) to talk with us for a period of time, and we can discuss the homeowner's obligation to the community," Manning said. "I would hope that he would be able to uphold the agreement that his wife informed us of - that upon his return, the sign will come down."

Stacey Kelley said she changed her mind about that offer after an initial board meeting where she was asked to take the sign down. She wants to leave the sign up for the duration of her husband's deployment, which could be years.

"If they don't take it down, then I have to go the board and determine how to proceed," Manning said. The only signs allowed in the 3,500-home neighborhood are "For Sale," "For Rent" and alarm company signs.

At that meeting in March, the association offered to display the sign in front of the community's swim center as a compromise.

The Kelleys, both 24, balked. David Kelley said Wednesday signs like his mean a lot to soldiers fighting overseas.

"While you're out there, you have limited access to talk to your family back home," he said. "Sometimes, you're in areas where you have none whatsoever. The little bits of support, be it photos of people being together or pictures of signs out in people's yards, it makes the day better for us - like people do care and they show it."

The couple has left town for a few days to escape the limelight. At the end of his leave, David Kelley will go back to Baqubah, Iraq, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, where he works driving trucks to transport supplies over dangerous routes.

"Every day it changes," he said. "It might be that nothing happened today. It was a good day, you made you trip, you made your runs. Tomorrow, you may be out of the front gate and a bomb goes off."

He hopes his story will help bring more positive attention to the troops.

"It's kind of sad that it takes somebody actually trying to stand up for something and people telling her, "No, you can't do that,' to get people to start noticing things," he said. "It shouldn't be that way, but sometimes it has to be."

Stephanie Hayes can be reached at 813 269-5303 or shayes@sptimes.com

[Last modified April 19, 2006, 17:32:01]