Whenever one Renton veteran is feeling well enough, thousands see his giant U.S. flag being carried along the Exit 7 overpass on Interstate 405.

Fred Pepper has been marching for years.

“We gave up our freedom to protect freedom,” he said. “I couldn’t stand the thought of people not appreciating it.”

The flag isn’t necessarily a protest, but a sign of support for U.S. troops and veterans.

“You do what you can,” he said of his work. “It’s nothing but a crazy old man carrying a beautiful flag.”

The stripes and stars are joined by a small black flag supporting Prisoner’s of War.

“They’re (veterans) prisoners of war in their own country and they’re missing in action in their own families,” he said.

He began carrying the flag in Renton a few years ago.

The exit number is the same as the ship he was stationed on during the Vietnam War, the USS Henry B. Wilson DDG-7.

“Each time I do my job, I do 100 percent on the bridge,” he said.

In 1995, Pepper carried the flag from Olympia to Idaho. Sleeping under bridges, he walked every step of the way, he said.

He did it to protest billions being cut from government funding for veterans affairs, he said.

He then hitched rides with the flag from Kansas to Washington, D.C. He retired his pole on Veterans Day, he said. “And that’s when I finished being a veteran.”

The flag bearer found his way into local news multiple times through the 1990s.

He was seen at a downtown Seattle protest of the Persian Gulf War.

He also worked as the director of the Tukwila Community Center.

He made a bid for the Tukwila City Council and the King County Council but never was elected to public office.

Retired, Pepper can be seen pulling his weight for national pride.

“I think we’re from the greatest thing ever,” he said. “It’s for everyone of us that wants to say God Bless America.”