It's 3 in the afternoon and Bob Modero is raising the American flag.

Few people are strolling around Hawai'i Kai in the hottest part of the day. But every few minutes, cars rounding the corner of Kalanipu'u Street and 'Aipo Street will slow as their drivers gawk at the tall man hoisting the Stars and Stripes up a 45-foot flagpole in his front yard.

"People just consider it a piece of cloth, but to me it's something different," the 63-year-old landscaper said Tuesday, holding the flag's halyard, or hoisting rope, in his hands.

Modero has been flying the flag in front of his home since 1972. That was three years after he returned from serving with the Hawai'i National Guard in Vietnam. At 21, he saw many of his buddies lose their lives and he was nearly killed in a sniper ambush outside Cu Chi.

"This is my way of dealing with the guys who didn't come back," he said.

His experience gave him an appreciation for life, he said, and an obligation to honor the memories of his buddies who never returned.

"Vietnam was one of the best things that ever happened to me because it opened my eyes to what I have," he said.

Today, Modero has a lot. "I can't say enough about being alive," he said.

The walls of his home are plastered with family photographs, drawings, canoe paddles and Hawaiian art. The rooms are filled with furniture and statues of animals, including two tall wooden giraffes that watch over the living room. Half a dozen birds swing in wire cages on the lanai and a 10-year-old, 100-pound Galapagos tortoise pokes around the backyard.

He plans to take his wife and two grandchildren to East Honolulu's first-ever Independence Day at Maunalua Bay celebration today.

Two of his prized flags — one 15 feet by 10 feet and one 19-by-10 — will flutter in the breeze above the ceremonies and he has been asked to give a short speech.

"I think it's a wonderful thing that we have a chance to reflect on all the sacrifices," he said. "It's long overdue with the way the world situation is today."

Haha'ione Valley resident and Fourth of July event organizer Jimmy Ishimoto said Modero is a local celebrity whose high-flying flags have become a landmark for residents, as well as the city police, who sometimes give directions according to the placement of the pole, he said.

The American flag is an essential part of the Independence Day celebration, so when the organizing committee began looking for the Stars and Stripes to put on display, Ishimoto immediately thought of Modero.

"I remembered him always flying the flag," he said. "He's just a really, really nice guy who is happy to be alive and enjoy life."

Flags of the size Modero collects can cost more than $200, so the committee was lucky to be able to borrow them, Ishimoto said.

The original Old Glory is said to have been sewn with 13 stars and 13 stripes by Betsy Ross in 1776, but the design has changed dozens of times over the years as states were admitted to the union.

The current flag was made official with 50 stars on July 4, 1960, after Hawai'i became a state in 1959. To date, the 50-star flag has been in use longer than any of the previous official renditions.

Besides the flags he is loaning to the Independence Day festivities, Modero has about five others, including a 15-by-25-footer that he flies only on special occasions and in non-windy weather. "If it ever gets out of control," he said, "it'll lift you."

He uses smaller flags for days when the flag must be flown at half-staff, like Sept. 11 — "otherwise it'll be on the ground" — and has marked all special holidays and half-staff occasions on his calendar.

Parents sometimes bring their children to see and take pictures on the days he flies the large flag, he said. And many have accepted his flag-raising as part of their routines.

"Some mornings I don't put the flag up right away," he said. "Then, I've got guys coming by here, pointing to their watches and saying, 'The flag's not up' ... It's kind of like they expect it."

Still, he does get some odd looks.

"A lot of people are ashamed of being patriotic, (they feel) it's not the thing to do," he said.

But, "that flag stands for many people's lives. Not only them, but their families."

This morning, he will hoist the large flag into the sky above Hawai'i Kai with pride and respect.

"I think it kind of wakes people up to the freedoms we take for granted," he said. "My buddies aren't forgotten — they're very much alive."