At Merrimack Valley High, the yearbook policy prohibits photos like the one Jordan Westgate submitted. He's wearing his army combat hat, and he's standing in front of the American flag. What's the problem? asks Jordan, a senior who completed the Army's basic training last summer.

He's showing no disrespect. No disrespect at all. No hats and no props? Well, okay, for the most part. But shouldn't exceptions be made, especially these days, when we're fighting two wars simultaneously?

In fact Westgate, who will become a full-time soldier after graduation, believes he's showing more respect than anyone else in his class.

Where's the beef?

"I think it's disrespectful to disassemble the uniform," says Westgate, sitting in his kitchen with his stepmother, Dee, nearby. "It's disrespectful to the men and women who have fought and died before me."

The rule debuted four years ago, after students began submitting their own digitally snapped photos, often casual, posed, full-length and, the administration believed, inappropriate for the formal flavor sought in the student's portrait section.

Therein lies the seeds of our feud. It's lasted the better part of two months. Jordan will have his yearbook photo taken by a fellow student and her digital camera, but the residual effects linger with the family.

It certainly didn't help when Dee, anticipating a fight and searching for ammunition, found a picture of a Muslim girl who covered her head with a traditional scarf in the 2007 yearbook's junior class section.

Dee quickly slid the little photo of the Muslim girl across the kitchen counter to bolster her case.

"We feel we're being discriminated against for being in the military," Dee said. "She had to wear something as part of her religion. What's the difference?"

Mike Jette, the MV principal, is in the eye of the storm. He calmly answered questions about the issue this week. He emphasized that this is not a statement against the military, noting that his grandfather and father served.

But he says religion and the controversy surrounding Jordan are, indeed, different. The Muslim student had no choice; Jordan did.

"I think there's a difference with religion," Jette said. "If a Jewish student came here and said he had to wear a yarmulke (for the portrait photograph), we'd have to look at that."

Jette added that students, maybe one or two a year, ask for permission to submit photos of themselves in military uniform. He's held firm so far.

"We've given the same answer, which is you can submit it to other portions of the yearbook . . . and people have done that," Jette said. "In other parts (of the yearbook), the kid who is in the military has an opportunity and the kid who is engaged in whatever activity, there are different parts of the yearbook to display different things. Nobody has pushed the envelope before."

The Westgates, though, pushed the envelope, then mailed it again and again. They're a military family, more than most, and they wear their history on their sleeves, like the red, white and blue patch on Jordan's Army uniform. They're touched by the soldier who stormed that beach, who climbed that cliff.

Jordan's father, Brandon, served in Iraq in 2003 as part of the Army National Guard, and he's going back in August. Brandon's father was in the National Guard, too. Dee served in the Army for three years. Dee's father was in the Reserves. Uncle Ricky was in the Air Force, Uncle John the Army.

"That's why it's such a big thing to the heart," Dee said. "It's about honor and pride and what we do and what our family has done and what we believe in."

Jordan? He completed basic training last summer, 10 weeks at Fort Benning, Ga. He learned how to survive in the field, how to fight, how to defend a country. He'll join the Army full-time after graduation, then train for four weeks in Oklahoma. Then he'll be shipped out. He doesn't know where. Could be Kuwait. Or maybe Iraq. Or maybe Afghanistan.

"I'm nervous, excited, any feeling you can have when you find out you're going to war," Jordan said.

The bulk of the senior yearbook portraits were snapped during the summer, when Jordan was training. He had his photo taken at Fort Benning, the one in full uniform, with the flag in the background and his brown eyes, disciplined and confident, peeking out from under his Army cap.

The photos cost $250, and Dee assumed one would be used in the yearbook. (He later found out from the yearbook advisor that his military photo was unacceptable, a decision Jette later backed).

Meanwhile, MV students could pay to visit a professional photographer, hired by the school, last summer for their yearbook portrait. Or they could wait for one of three selected dates - Sept. 8 or 10, or Oct. 6 - and have their picture taken at the school with a routine $50 sitting fee.

"I'm very empathetic to the financial situations of all our families," Jette said. "So that's why we have this arrangement."

Jordan, still at basic training, missed the first 1½ weeks of school and thus the first free photo session. The story gets fuzzy from here.

Relenting to Jette, Jordan says he tried attending the second photo session but was turned away because, he said, he was told the shoot was for underclassmen only. He ignored the third session because it was a retake of the second.

Jette says Dee told him that Jordan's $50 check wasn't accepted, but, he said, the adviser and photographer told him no one willing to pay had been turned away.

With a Nov. 6 shoot deadline looming and Dee unwilling to pay another few hundred dollars for a professional, a student will shoot Jordan's portrait with her digital camera.

Which brings us back to the larger issue.

Jette says he doesn't want to set a precedent. He doesn't want to open other photographical cracks for kids to slip through.

"I think it's a slippery slope if you say, 'Okay we're going to make a judgment call that this is okay or that is okay,' " Jette said. "Instead, we're just saying no hats, no props, and that's what we want in that section of the yearbook."

Jordan? He says his principal is too rigid. Plain and simple.

"It's too late for me," Jordan said. "But who's to say someone won't want a military photo in next year?"

History, Jordan knows, says don't even bother.

Correction
This story was corrected after publication to say that Dee Westgate is Jordan Westgate's stepmother.