American Legion on Stolen Valor
As you probably know, TSO and VTWoody are at the Supreme Court today listening to arguments before the Court in regards to Stolen Valor. The USAToday printed the American Legion’s stance on the issue. TSO tells me that he wrote it;
Despite hyperbolic claims from opponents of the Stolen Valor Act, this legislation does not represent a slippery slope toward outlawing mere boasts in a tavern. This act recognizes congressional authority under the Constitution to safeguard and protect the reputation and meaning of military decorations and medals.
As the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals recently noted in a different Stolen Valor Act challenge, “The Supreme Court has observed time and again, false statements of fact do not enjoy constitutional protection, except to the extent necessary to protect more valuable speech. Under this principle, the Stolen Valor Act does not impinge on or chill protected speech, and therefore does not offend the First Amendment.”
Like I pointed out in my interview that wasn’t broadcast this morning, people have used their Stolen Valor to give them some sort of moral authority in a particular discussion. Ballduster McSoulpatch claimed that he was a highly decorated general/lieutenant colonel who despite his many awards was ejected from the Army because of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. The truth was that he had been discharged years before the policy was enacted and he was an undecorated PFC when he was discharged.
Rick Duncan/Strandlof, who had never spent a day in uniform, pushed the DADT meme, too, as a gay Marine captain. He also starred in VoteVets commercials for political candidates as a wounded Iraq veteran to entice people to vote as a wounded Iraq veteran would want them to vote.
Xavier Alvarez, whose case is being discussed today, used his Stolen Valor to advance his political career without spending a day in a real uniform. Gunny Lauve, who had spent a few months in the Navy at the end of World War II had lived off of the kindness of his neigbors for decades. Phony SEAL Jason Truitt stole a hunting trip from some real wounded veteran and took his free rifle.
All of these instances are egregious breaches of faith, but without Stolen Valor, none of those instances of fraud are illegal. The producer of the radio show asked me if I didn’t think that the penalties (up to year in prison) were too stiff. I answered that ‘no’ I didn’t think so. If laws are a deterrent to criminal behavior, it’d be easy to avoid a year in prison – all a person has to do is not make false claims about their military service.
Category: Phony soldiers
‘Twas said best nearly 500 years ago:
Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
‘Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
Othello Act 3, scene 3, 155–161
Posers who falsely claim military service or decorations they never earned steal the good name of others, then use it for their own benefit. This devalues the standing of those whose good name has been diminished. It is nothing less than non-monetary fraud, and should (and IMO, can) legally be regulated as such.
Let’s all hope the SCOUTS does the right thing here.
Damn. Above should read “. . . 400 years ago”.
And it goes above that as well, if you consider the case of people like Sealy McChippendale, who make SV claims in order to obtain disability ratings and rank they never earned.
Speaking of which, why is that assclown still breathing free air?
To put it mildly, as we’ve seen in literally DOZENS of cases on this site alone, a guy who will lie about his service will also lie, cheat, or steal, as evidenced by the numerous cases of fraud that are directly or indirectly tied to SV claims.
On Cryer, I filed a complaint with the DVA OIG and then put a bug in the ear of a reader who let me know that he also works for the DVA OIG, so we’ll see what happens. Maybe the VA has a SWAT Team they can use to bust down the door at the strip club where he works.
I am awaiting the Judicial Opinion with baited breath, this will be interesting…
It will probably be months before we know how the court decides.
Okay, putting on the asbestos suit here, but COULD the current version of SVA go too far, in that if someone basically claims SOLELY for “bragging rights” to have been a high-speed, low-drag SEAL Space Shuttle door gunner?
I’m actually kind of conflicted on that one. On one hand, idle boasting with no expectation of renumeration or credibility (i.e., some shitbag trying to scam a piece of tail in a bar) might be one thing, but I also go back to Burkett’s example of the CBS special, “The Wall Within” where they interviewed six people who claimed to be combat veterans of Vietnam.
Only one was, and he wasn’t in combat arms. Yet the damage was done to the image of veterans. To this day, I’m not aware of any retraction or apology CBS made over the airing of that special. The damage that is done to veterans over claims such as these are long-lasting and deep, and we’re finding more and more cases of such claims making their way to the MSM outlets from phony Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
Tough call.
I may have told this story before, but here it is again; how I got involved in the phony soldier thing. While I was in college, I was watching the news one day (remember back when we only had CNN?) and they were interviewing a “homeless Gulf War veteran”, a scant few years after the Gulf War. He was telling the interviewer how society had turned their back on him after he got out and the Army had hung him out to dry. The reporter asked him when he had been in the Gulf War and the dude responded that he had been there since May. Hussein didn’t invade Kuwait until August 2, 1990, so this guy must’ve had some keen insight to have been in Iraq more than three months before the war started.
The reporter’s expression betrayed that he suddenly realized that the guy was full of shit, but all he did was end the interview instead of setting the record straight and it pissed me off so bad, I declared war on those cocksuckers at that minute…both the liars and the media that enables them.
@NHSparky, I think you are asking “do we have the right to lie”.
And I am with you. There is a line.
Jonn, I got involved thanks to Matthis pissing on the service of actual Afghan Vets. I want this to pass so that he may be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Xavier Alvarez lied to advance his political career. His claims to be a decorated vet was a way to seek monetary gain from it. That in my fact book is fraud. The courts should rule against him.
NHSparky: That’s the one thing that gives me pause as well re: the SVA as-written. The law (18 USC 704b) explicitly makes it illegal to falsely claim “verbally or in writing, to have been awarded any decoration or medal authorized by Congress for the Armed Forces of the United States, any of the service medals or badges awarded to the members of such forces, the ribbon, button, or rosette of any such badge, decoration, or medal, or any colorable imitation of such item”. That would technically appear to cover falsely claiming to be qualified for the SEAL Trident, the Ranger and SF tabs, the EIB/CIB, jump wings, submariner’s dolphins, the ARSTAFF and Joint Staff badges, and a host of others – even in a social setting like a bar. Whether any prosecutor would do so or not is questionable – but at least theoretically IMO it could happen.
It’s the “badges” part of the SVA with which I have the most problem. Personally, I’d have been OK with the SVA omitting claims concerning military badges and only prohibiting false claims about decorations and medals. Yet that would have raised what is IMO a legitimate question: “Why is it legal to lie about earning a military badge but not about earning a military medal?” It’s a good question, and not one for which I have a ready answer.
And in any case: one can also argue that falsely claiming to be a SEAL in order to get laid is effectively non-monetary fraud – i.e., it’s getting yer ashes hauled by deceit and/or under false pretense. (smile)
I would argue that any lie or embellishment of military service is wrong. Period. Does it really matter what the one telling the lie expects to garner? Quite obviously, the liar expects something of value in return for the lie or s/he would not be telling the lie. (Value here is, of course, entirely subjective – we who have earned our awards value honor, to include lying about one’s awards. Others have no idea what that means.) That something of value that the liar expects could be anything from a pat on the back to stoke his/her ego, a beer from someone at the bar, or awards from assorted veterans’ groups.
Yes, a clearly fraudulant claim to the VA is an easy thing to quantify. The beauty of the SVA is that it recognizes and makes illegal, every claim made which violates our honor.
I agree with OWB, any embellishment is wrong. I think it is messed up that you can go to prison for impersonating a federal agent or cop, but if you get caught impersonating a servicemember or falsifying your awards, thats just free speech? Bullshit!
Don’t get me wrong. I served and don’t like seeing anything taken from my brothers and sisters who earned it. I get pretty excited about posers.
Maybe we have left the day of the bar room braggot. Maybe those guys don’t exist, and they always were worst then that and the days of the internet have allowed us to see and identify them easier.
I don’t know…in light of it all I think maybe we veterans have to start looking after each other more then we used to.
OWB. I don’t disagree. i am just leery of more laws. call me crazy like that. Any fool can make a rule and any fool can follow it.
I don’t have an argument against SVA, but I do see what NHSparky’s point.
I don’t know. The days of the bar room braggot are probably gone or the Internet has made it easier and faster to spot them and thier wrong doings.
In end though I think us Vets need to watch over each other more. I don’t see that part getting any better.
OWB: Yes, any lying or embellishment of one’s military record is wrong. So is lying to a civilian boss about why one wasn’t at work the previous day (e.g., “I was sick” vice “I was hung over”). So . . . why should the former be illegal and not the latter?
I support the SVA, and hope the SCOTUS rules it legal. But I do have reservations about it in practice, and can certainly follow the argument made by free speech advocates. Much like Steadfast&Loyal, I don’t completely agree – but I can see their point.
Lucky: technically one can be sent to prison for unauthorized wear of a military uniform, too (18 USC 702). But it virtually never happens.
Hondo, that is the point I was trying to make. The amount of folks perpetuating Stolen Valor is grossly disproportionate to the amount of folks prosecuted for said violations of the law. It is my hope that the USSC debate bring this issue more to the forefront of debate. This flood of fakers is only the beginning; once the GWOT actually starts winding down, we will see a flood of this sort of thing. This is why its important to nip it in the bud now!
And I am with those who are suspicious of any new law, and convinced that most of them are contrary to either the US Constitution or the future well-being of the country. (I tend to be very libertarian in that regard.)
That said, there are a few things which are specifically enumerated in the founding documents – safety and security issues among those few. Those who are directly responsible for maintaining that order include the military, police, firefighters, and a few others. Yes, anyone impersonating one of those should face prison and those laws which may still be needed to make it happen.
(I include firefighters in that list since they have the broadest set of circumstances for warrantless entry. In case anyone wondered. Or not.)
This is not about idle bar room bragging folks. This is about people making utterly false claims to being something they are not and then furthering that lie rather than admitting the next day that they were being either drunk, stoned or stupid and in most cases probably a combination of 2 of those 3.
I could give you the case of one Joseph (aka Jose) Nathaniel Harris who claims to be a “Triple Canopy” Army veteran and yet there is no record of him being in the Rangers nor passing the SFQ to become a Green Beret. His book “Mi Vida” is full of bull sheeit in this regard. Furthermore he receives 100% VA Disability based on the lies he has perpetrated. I could list others as well but I think we understand what is at stake. Too many fakes/posers are claiming more than just awards and titles that they never earned. Many are claiming benefits they are not entitled to and that goes way beyond mere bar room bragging.
Hey OEF_Veteran, only problem with your statement is that Mr. Harris has actually provided PROOF, in the person of bona fides, 214, SFA membership and other paperwork that supports his having actually been an 18D. I agree that many are claiming things they never received. Hell, my last tour we had an E-4 that decided he would make himself a CPL with a Ranger Tab, CIB, and Combat Patch “Just to fit in”. We figured out in premob that he was full of shit when he didn’t know how to mount a 240B to a Hummvee.
https://www.facebook.com/Neuro25, check the facts prior to calling someone out, just sayin’…….
Lucky, unless you are a fucking chimp, you can mount a 240B to a HMMWV. Hell, all it takes is rubbing two brain cells together to do that. And, I wasn’t even combat arms, I’m just a supply guy and I know how to do that shit.
I live South of Cherry Point, Seymour Johnston,and Bragg,just when you think you have heard the worst “No Shit- I Was There…” then BOOM!! I’ve actually heard guys describing their careers like the plots of some movies.
Flagwaver, exactly my point, the guy in my unit that was a PX Ranger didn’t know how, and we are Reservists. Fuck he was the ONLY one who didn’t know, at that point, we pretty much shunned him until the 15-6 was complete.
Hey Lucky I have seen the proof. It’s called checking with those who hold the records. RTB has NO record of one Jose (or Joseph)Harris attending or graduating the course and Jose never finished the SFQ. Furthermore his claims of PTSD are based on multiple lies which have been proven to be lies by people who were actually part of units he claims to have been assigned to at during his career. Methinks that Lucky is either Jose himself or one of his rabid followers who would dismiss all evidence AGAINST Joser the Poser as hatred towards a disabled hero. In fact it is Joser the Poser who maintains he is something that he is not nor ever was and collects 100% VA Disability as a result. This is one example of why the SVA needs to remain and not because of some idiot bar room braggart.
Oh yeah and Lucky that link is to a Facebook page not reality.