SOUTHBRIDGE (CBS) – A man’s choice of lawn decoration has his neighbors concerned and furious. The resident at 832 Guelphwood Road in Southbridge displayed a Nazi flag, covered in swastikas, on a pole in his lawn early this week.

“Shocked at first,” said neighbor Brian Harvard. “Then disgusted.”

Harvard first alerted the Southbridge community to the Nazi flag hanging in his neighbor’s front yard Monday by way of social media.

“I can’t just do nothing,” he said. “I have to let people know what’s going on right in their neighborhood.”

The swastika-covered flag was taken down once it hit social media, but just a few feet away in the same man’s yard hangs a Confederate flag with the saying “Don’t tread on me” written across it.

“School buses drive right past there filled with kids,” said Harvard. “Southbridge has a lot of minorities. And they’re seeing this [Nazi] flag and a Confederate flag, and that’s disturbing to me.”

WBZ stopped by the private property and tried to reach the homeowner. He didn’t respond to our calls. While he may be silent, people in town had a lot to say.

“It’s just you don’t see things like that nowadays,” Southbridge resident Alex Ortiz said. “It leaves you speechless, something like that.”

Brian Harvard, who posted the picture, is a veteran himself, and his grandfather served in World War II. He was shocked that the neighbor would hang a Nazi flag so close to the 75th anniversary of D-Day – and while he doesn’t agree with his neighbor’s choice, he accepts his right to do it. “I served in the military as well, and I will defend someone’s freedom of speech all day long, and I feel the same way about him,” Harvard explained.

Despite multiple complaints, both on social media and to the town, police say there’s nothing they can do because of the man’s right to free speech.