Mike and Linda Bartlett aren't afraid to show their "true colors."

Red, white and blue can be found all over the barn at their family's 1908 farmstead and yard south of Northport. It's hard to miss.

Mike and Linda Bartlett

“We’re very patriotic,” said Bartlett, who represents the third generation of owners of the home and barn.

His son, Shane, the fourth generation representative, is in town this week along his 5-week-old son, Wilson.

“We’ll have a houseful,” his wife Linda said.

The Bartlett’s 2-story barn – decked out in red, white and blue – is the focal point of Fourth of July in Northport outside of Wednesday night’s fireworks display in Northport. It was built shortly after Oscar Bartlett purchased the property from Charles Mendowash, a native American whose name appears on a 1873 deed from the federal government.

“My father (Oscar, the second generation owner) brought me up here for the first time when I was two years old,” Bartlett said. “I’ve been up here for the Fourth almost every year since.”

Heading north on M-22, about three miles south of Northport, there’s no missing the Bartlett’s. Motorists driving north can see six flags in the yard before slowing to turn left into their driveway.

“We have more people stop and take pictures,” Linda said. “I don’t care.”

Not long after inheriting the property in 1994, Bartlett noticed that the old barn was in need of painting.

“They’re a vanishing landmark,” he said. “I wanted to do something and figured it’d look nice in red, white and blue.”

The couple had already given the eastern facade of the barn a new look by “recycling” and installing some large windows they had replaced in their Lansing-area home.

“It filled in nicely,” Linda said.

The Bartletts then enlisted the help of Jerry Spears of Northport, known as “Five-O” to locals. One week later, after 30 gallons of primer and 25 gallons of paint and help from Spears, the patriotic barn was completed. It remained the same, with minor alterations, until three years ago.

It was then the wood on the north and south sides of the barn was replaced with vertical stripes of red, white and blue. The back, or west side of the structure, is plain white and the side facing east (toward M-22) is the most dramatic. It names the four generations of owners — Oscar, Ralph, Mike and Shane. The phrase “Freedom is not free” is spelled out in bold letters, flanked by the “Blackhorse,” the symbol for the Army’s 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, with which Mike served in Vietnam.

The unit arrived in Vietnam in September 1966, and was in almost constant contact with the enemy. Bartlett was an Army sergeant in 1969 and participated in several major operations with Blackhorse trailing larger tanks into the jungle, where minefields and booby traps were prevalent.

“Our mission was to seek and destroy,” Bartlett said.

After 10 months in the jungle, Mike, in his early 20s at the time, took advantage of the government’s offer to attend college. He wasn’t injured in combat, though he suffered a scorpion bite to the chest and was diagnosed with malaria not long after returning home.

He’s proud of his service to the country. But he admits the homecoming for he and his fellow vets was less than warm.

“The public called us women- and child-killers,” Bartlett said. “The best thing that came out of it was the State of Michigan giving all those who served in Vietnam a $600 check.”

The couple’s only son, Shane, is also a veteran, having served five years with the U.S. Marine Corps. His tours of duty include Afghanistan, Iraq and Liberia.

It’s pride of country and those who serve it which inspire the Bartletts to go all out with the red, white and blue.

A cursory look at the lawn and outbuildings on the homestead yielded more than 50 flags, pennants and streamers all ready for the Fourth of July celebration. There’s no mistaking Linda’s car — it has two American flags on either corner of its back window. Even the purple marlin house on the front lawn is red, white and blue.

What’ll happen to the display? Not much.

“I’ll probably take the flags down at the end of the driveway and put up my (Michigan State) Spartan flags.”