Tattered placards adorn Franz Jansen’s front lawn.

The myriad signs have also encroached on several hundred feet of nearby roadway. Jansen didn’t even spare his house, now a billboard for the United States of America.

One of his signs says it best: "I am Franz Jansen. One man army."

While foreign support for America and its military vacillates, the 73-year-old Slovenian immigrant has remained steadfast. His signs are neither right nor left, and he has churned them out through four presidencies.

"American soldiers are my life," he says. "We have peace and freedom because of American soldiers."

Jansen’s fingernails are stained black, a byproduct of painting hundreds of placards since 1985.

It started when President Ronald Reagan visited Bitburg, Germany, and Jansen decided to send him a message, using the facade of his house. "Dear God," he wrote in enormous black letters. "Bless and Save President Reagan. USA."

Who knows what his wife thought, but it got the president’s attention: Jansen was sent a picture of his home signed by Ronald Reagan.

"Mr. Jansen," wrote one of Reagan’s aides. "One of your friends sent President Reagan photographs of the supportive signs on your house in Germany. I just wanted to let you know how much the president appreciated seeing them."

Why does he do it?

Jansen, a former Yugoslavian soldier, came to Germany in 1964 with the intention of joining the U.S. Army, but he fell ill and had a kidney and part of his large intestine removed. "To this day, I’m still sick," he says, possibly from pancreatic cancer. He and his wife live on his disability pension.

When the weather turns warm, though, he rallies outside the gates of U.S. Army Garrison Baumholder and Ramstein Air Base, wearing brown and black army fatigues. His gray face peers out from under a helmet, he says, once was worn by a soldier during the Vietnam War. It is now painted with a favorite refrain: freedom.

It’s a word he does not take lightly.

As a child, he celebrated the arrival of Hitler’s motorcade in his hometown of Maribor, Slovenia, and then watched as the German army bombed a nearby town when Slovenians raised their flag.

"Every nation should be free," he said. "Freedom like we have in America and Europe."

Kathy Ledbetter, head of Baumholder’s Army Community Service, didn’t know Jansen’s name, but she has seen him parade his signs — several flags flapping in the wind behind him — at least three times a month for the past three years.

"I think most people don’t know anything about him," she said. "But I’ve always wondered what his story was."

It has become harder lately for Jansen, though, and not only because of his failing health. Jansen says he is sometimes harassed when he dons his American garb.

"I can’t go on the train anymore," he says.

But he hopes that will change with the election of Barack Obama.

David Nasaw, professor of U.S. cultural history at City University of New York, thinks it might. Watershed moments in history, he said, such as the end of World War II or Charles Lindbergh’s famous flight galvanize support for America.

"I’ve heard Europeans might celebrate the inauguration," he said. "These are special moments, however. It’s probably more an anomaly than emblematic."

Though it’s costing him hundreds of euros a year to keep in paint and poster board, Jansen, the scruffy old soldier, won’t stop.

"It keeps me alive," he says. "But I’m not here for me. I’m here for the U.S. soldier. They need support, someone to say thank you."

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