U.S. Marine veteran Brian Ellison was livid when he left for work on Wednesday.

As he pulled out of his driveway in Ahwatukee, Arizona, he noticed charred bits of red, white and blue, then realized the source of the mess.

“When I looked down, it was the American flag that we fly on the front of our house,” Ellison told KTVK. “It had been burned. It had caught fire. And then I looked at the flagpole and all of the flag had burned off the pole.”

Ellison’s wife, Lisa Ellison, told WWMT the vandalism hit her husband where it hurts.

“The look on his face because he is part military, a Marine, was like somebody shot him, you know,” she said. “He was just devastated that somebody would do this to anybody and to us.

“And just looking at him made me realize that this is not right,” she said. “It’s personal.”

The couple called the police to file a formal report and attached a spare flag to the pole.

“I think everybody needs to find a different way to protest,” Brian Ellison told KPNX. “If you want to sit down for the national anthem, that’s your right, it doesn’t make it right. If you want to show your frustration by protesting and burning a flag, I guess it’s your right — not if it’s on my house — but just because it’s your right, doesn’t make it right.”

“There’s two big pieces that you feel when you see something like that,” he said. “You’re sad, and you’re mad. There’s not a lot that you can do about either one of them. So I came home and put another flag up.”

Lisa Ellison told KTVK the couple is hoping the incident will inspire others in their community to stand up for the symbol of freedom that so many in the military have given their lives to defend.

“I want everyone in Ahwatukee to get their own flag and all of us stand proud and say this is not going to happen anymore,” she said.

“The flag means to me this is our country, this is what we stand for, this is what our service men and women died for,” Lisa Ellison told KPNX.

“The flag means everything to me,” Brian Ellison said. “When you say your oath when you join the military you stand in front of that flag when raise your right hand. When we lose a service member or a veteran dies we put it on their casket.”

Phoenix police continue to investigate the case.