Charges Dismissed in Stolen Valor case

[RedLegGI]

The issue I have here is not with collectors at all, as I am one myself. The real problem and goal of this law is to get those individuals claiming false citations and awards they have received for service in the military. I'll proudly wear my medals the rest of my life as well as my combat patch. Why? Because I've earned these and no matter what you do, you can never take these away from me. It is outright disrespectful for someone to claim awards that they have not earned.

 

Granted its been about four years since I've donned my WWII impression, but to my understanding, our rules are still strictly enforced. The only members of our unit that are authorized to wear any kind of decoration are those that were military and earned them. We strongly frown upon those who wear ribbons /combat patches that have not earned then. This is done out of respect for those who serve and those who do serve.

 

 

TL;DR

 

I support collectors not fakers

[Chribo]

Making a claim to something unearned is shameful. Society should condemn such actions.

 

Indded.

 

Totally unrelated.... or is it?

 

Guy lies to a girl on a date... and gets 18 months for claiming ... well... just read and see...

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/07...bid=S-WoscVsCoB

[emccomas]

Our country has had a moral code for centuries. We were founded on Biblical principles and they are only now passe'. The moment we started diverty from Christian based morality, we ended up with "whatever feels good, do it" morals. Now we're too far left (do what you want, everybody gets a trophy), or the opposite (Sharia law).

 

We must tread carefully in that arena, I agree. Currently, this adminstration is mandating morality toward the left. Our country has lost it's moral compass in part. Most of us are morally on par as Americans but the more you add foreign and extreme behaviors to be defined as "the new normal".

 

Rock

 

Since we are now way off topic on this issue, all I will add is that we should not be treading in this arena at all. The government needs to stay out of this arena period. I respect your opinion and I think we can agree to disagree on this.

 

My understanding of SVA is that is it trying to cover three separate issues, and covering all of them badly.

1. Claiming / wearing / whatever uniforms / decorations / whatever that the individual is not entitled to.

2. The property rights associated with original decorations, including the MOH.

3. The production / sale/ etc. of replica decorations.

 

As to #1

Absolutely shameful behavior, and should be condemned by the court of public opinion. However, the legislative branch needs to stay out of this. If fraud (tangable gain) occurs for this behavior, then the applicable laws should be applied.

 

As to #2

This violates the basic law of economics. Anything of value can and will be bought and sold. Significant pieces of American history are going overseas. That is a crime.

 

As to #3

This should fall under the Hobby Protection Act. Replicas should be marked as such. Yes, I understand that this will not work in all circumstances (the junk from China for example), but those that fail to follow the law should be punished accordingly.

[USMCRECON]

It's hopeless. I cannot remain silent or become silent on this issue, as much as I have tried. I have extremely strong feelings about these dirt-bag, walking, talking rectums who go around in public posing as decorated military members when they are not.

 

I am not against collecting uniforms and/or military decorations...I do so myself.

 

I'm not against the guy who wants to dress up in one of collection hero uniform, look into his bedroom mirror, puff his chest out, put on his best war face, and say UH-RAH! No problem at all with that. What he does in his home is his business.

 

Where it goes high and wide with me is when he becomes a faker; when he goes out in public, portraying himself as a decorated war hero when he is not.

 

I see these types every Memorial Day and Veterans Day strutting around at the "Wall" and at other public events friendly to military men and veterans.

 

When he does this, he has crossed that line and is committing a fraud upon everyone who sees him wearing fraudulent awards. He is stealing valor and honor from those who earned it, by posing as the recipient of decorations he didn't earn. Sometimes the faker is even posing as a military or former military member when he never was.

 

I don't see it as just a moral issue. I don't really see it as even a free speech issue. I see it as a low-life faker defrauding everyone who sees him portraying himself as a decorated member of the United States military service; a portrayal of someone he didn't have the guts to be in reality.

[shrapneldude]

It's hopeless. I cannot remain silent or become silent on this issue, as much as I have tried. I have extremely strong feelings about these dirt-bag, walking, talking rectums who go around in public posing as decorated military members when they are not.

 

I am not against collecting uniforms and/or military decorations...I do so myself.

 

I'm not against the guy who wants to dress up in one of collection hero uniform, look into his bedroom mirror, puff his chest out, put on his best war face, and say UH-RAH! No problem at all with that. What he does in his home is his business.

 

Where it goes high and wide with me is when he becomes a faker; when he goes out in public, portraying himself as a decorated war hero when he is not.

 

I see these types every Memorial Day and Veterans Day strutting around at the "Wall" and at other public events friendly to military men and veterans.

 

When he does this, he has crossed that line and is committing a fraud upon everyone who sees him wearing fraudulent awards. He is stealing valor and honor from those who earned it, by posing as the recipient of decorations he didn't earn. Sometimes the faker is even posing as a military or former military member when he never was.

 

I don't see it as just a moral issue. I don't really see it as even a free speech issue. I see it as a low-life faker defrauding everyone who sees him portraying himself as a decorated member of the United States military service; a portrayal of someone he didn't have the guts to be in reality.

 

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with you. NOBODY so far has come out actually defending this type of action that I know of. Most Americans are rightly disgusted by this behavior, or at least apathetic. There's no need to keep arguing that it is disgraceful behavior as we all seem to be in sync on that.

 

It's just not something that should be a legal issue. Would you prefer to have US Marshall or FBI agents standing by to check the credentials of every "veteran" who visits the Wall? A Police wagon on standby to round up everyone who exaggerates a war story at the VFW hall?

 

Again, I have to ask you and anyone else who comes down on this issue with the idea that the government has to step in on these guys... are our military veterans, dead, and wounded as well, so bad off as a result of the fakers that they've lost the respect and honor from the public? Is this nation in such shock over a handful of phonies that nobody will ever look up to another veteran as long as they live? Do we want a country that values the passage of law after law restricting speech when our nation was founded on the principles of individual rights and freedoms? Instead of responding with the "talking rectums" line again, please explain to me why you see veterans as so helpless that their service and sacrifice is so degraded by someone else lying, keeping in mind that fraud and theft are separate issues altogether. If American veterans don't honor the very freedoms that men have fought and bled for then why should anyone else? Does nobody else see that as more damaging than a few liars out there with bogus medals?

 

I recall there were several online databases for phony / wannabe veterans out there. AuthentiSEAL and a few others actually researched DD-214s and kept a log of photos and claims of these guys. This to me seemed a much better approach than sending it to the FBI to handle.

[tom2001]

An impostor says:

 

1) "I received a Purple Heart in Vietnam".... or

 

2) "I am permanently disabled due to injuries I sustained in Vietnam"

 

Both statements are lies. One of those statements is illegal, punishable by fines and up to 6 months in jail. The other probably gets him a prime seat on the float at the local Memorial Day parade.

[JBFloyd]

He is stealing valor and honor from those who earned it, by posing as the recipient of decorations he didn't earn.

 

These morons are stealing nothing. They don't become valorous by wearing medals.

 

Nobody is diminished in any way by the poser, except the poser. Holding them up to public ridicule is the best cleanser. Laughing and pointing always works.

[Sgt_Rock_EasyCo]

These morons are stealing nothing. They don't become valorous by wearing medals.

 

Nobody is diminished in any way by the poser, except the poser. Holding them up to public ridicule is the best cleanser. Laughing and pointing always works.

 

 

They do become valorous by wearing medals. Any reasonable person would look at a person wearing a ball cap, shirt, partial or full uniform and assume that the person was representing themselves provided that the uniform is age appropriate (15 year old kid in revolutionary garb is obviously fake). I don't know how many supposed Vietnam Veterans I've seen wearing a Vietnam Vet cap, or 101st Airborne Vietnam Cap or whatever. Anyone would assume that they're Vietnam Veterans and treat them with automatic deference and respect. Or maybe some old hippy would call them baby killer (at their own risk).

 

The posers love the respect and honor given them because it inflates their ego and makes them feel honorable, tough, or whatever. Mostly it's only other Veterans that can talk the talk to differentiate and vett those guys. If they get too many questions they can't answer they become evasive, rude, mean or whatever they think a veteran would act, which is the opposite of a real veteran. A real veteran doesn't mind the vetting process because it's how we confirm each other. We are what we are and anyone that was there can usually tell. Some posers study, practice, work, and put together pieces of stories from veterans to make their own little history. It sounds real good to others and builds their ego up. Pretty soon some of the braver ones weasel their way into veteran related groups, organizations and even escalate into attempting to get veteran preferences and benefits.

 

And then are the ultimate posers that dress in full Class A's or Dress Blues and go to veteran events, political events, and organize veteran causes to help support their ruse. Almost all of them get caught because they overdo it. They can't be a Private that was a Mechanic in Greenland during the Cold War....no, most of them bloat their rank, rack and MOS into Command Sgt Major of all Ranger, Recon, Seal military foces of the world with fifteen rows of medals and badges on every inch of their uniform.

 

The lowest common denominator is that once a person wears anything military and is age appropriate and allow people to think they are/were in the miltiary, they are seeking special treatment or respect. To Veterans, that's stealing something you didn't earn. Like wearing an FBI ball cap- People will look at you with respect, some will ask if you are FBI. If you say no, then it's done. If you say yes then you just claimed status unearned and people will treat you with greater respect.

 

It's illegal to claim law enforcement status.

It's illegal to claim military status.

 

If you wear unearned military decorations then I see it as similar to displaying a badge.

 

Rock

[SA1794]

Displaying a badge is a sign of authority and the required response of the observer is compliance.

 

Displaying a military decoration is a sign of accomplishment and it is at the discretion of the observer to elicit a response of respect.

[Sgt_Rock_EasyCo]

Displaying a badge is a sign of authority and the required response of the observer is compliance.

 

Displaying a military decoration is a sign of accomplishment and it is at the discretion of the observer to elicit a response of respect.

 

 

Wearing a badge does not require compliance. The assumption in our society is that you are obeying the laws that are based upon morale behavior. Officers are designed first as a deterrent to breaking the morale codes. Making a directive while wearing a badge requires compliance. The mere presence of an LEO is mereley a reminder to be respectful. The wearer garners automatic respect.

 

Wearing a military item requires people to assume that you have a military background. The assumption of our society is that should be respected because you have sacrificed part of your life and possibly your life in the service of our country. You garner respect by the mere presence of the worn military item and it is a reminder to people to be respectful to you. The wearer garners automatic respect.

 

Both the military and leo's garner automatic respect that is not dissimilar. Both are paramilitary organizations usually requiring the wear of uniforms, diciplined, morale, and identified easily by their behavior, intepidy and service.

 

Rock

[Sgt_Rock_EasyCo]

My Wife brought up a good point. People that represent themselves as Doctors, Pastors, Judges, Cops, Politicians, or other positions of responsibility are given titles that are earned through hard work, training, education, intelligence (politicians.. :think:? ). They are addressed by their earned titles and often that includes retirees from those professions. People are given deference and automatic respect based upon the title they are earned. The key word is *earned*.

 

People that wear military accoutraments in public are essentially demanding special treatment by it's mere presence alone. Similar to if a man walks around with a medical smock, Doctor's id, and a stethascope around his neck. People will assume you are a what you represent and will treat you differently. IF the man is not a Doctor, eventually he will be outed. While it's a costume, the more he escalates, the more it's illegal. Some fake Doctors end up treating people. Some fake soldiers end up on military bases with access to weapons systems.

 

On the outset, it seems harmless but in the end can be detrimental. The behavior is immoral from the beginning because the mindset is unhealthy. So we must ask ourselves at which point it's morally acceptible. A cancer is dangerous from it's microssopic inception and must be cut out right away because it sometimes manifests itself horribly. Same with posers of any honorable position; The behavior can never been seen as somehow "harmless" because it will always lead to larger and worse behavior, always.

 

There may have been posers in the past but it's worse now than I can ever remember. Society has garnered a tolerance of posers until it's too late. This degradation and tolerance of immoral behavior promotes it.

 

It can never be morally acceptible because it always leads to ner do well. The less diciplined our society has become, the more and more posers are exposed. This behavior is indicative of a morally decaying society that wishes immediate gratification without the corresponding effort. When you give every kid a trophy for accomplishing nothing, they develop a right of expectation to be given respect, jobs, titles, preferential treatment and honor without the corresponding effort.

 

As our society has declined in morality, "if it feels good, do it" has become the mantra and is now being slowly legislated into law by progressives. Fairness is not a right. Black Beret's given to all the soldiers doesn't make them all elite; it makes the beret common. Common is the new elite.

 

 

Rock

[cutiger83]

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with you. NOBODY so far has come out actually defending this type of action that I know of. Most Americans are rightly disgusted by this behavior, or at least apathetic. There's no need to keep arguing that it is disgraceful behavior as we all seem to be in sync on that.

 

It's just not something that should be a legal issue. Would you prefer to have US Marshall or FBI agents standing by to check the credentials of every "veteran" who visits the Wall? A Police wagon on standby to round up everyone who exaggerates a war story at the VFW hall?

 

Dan,

 

Very well put! Everyone keeps saying the same thing over and over and over and over. There is no need to keep arguing that this is disgraceful behavior because it is and everyone on here agrees that it is.

 

...Kat

[henry2]

for a lot of people they find it hard to belive that Military Police are sent to this places without a lot of build up of america forces .. i told one person this statement .. i sent the middle of the 84 to the 89 bounceing all around the central and south america helping with the socalled war on drugs with diff military and ciivilain law enforcement groups... part of my job guarding helos when they where on the ground in a indian country along with helping the DEA and other law enforcement types with the raids on the drug compounds as blocking forces and people to help with the haul out of items found there ..

 

as i explained to the one person .. we basically lived like the soldiers and pilots that we worked with liveing and sleeping inside a shed at the airport most of the time..

 

that i bought the thing about my DD214 and the two extras medals on it from when i got out ..

 

i been to some of the socalled vets group meeting and seen some pretty stange caps beening worn and i found that if you could understand the statement you where not stationed there as told to me by one old timer at one of these meetings, for we where sitting in a bar after the meeting and he had a few cocktails in him when he was explaining some of the coded message hats that the guys where wearing at the time..

[USMCRECON]

Thought you all might be interested in this item from the Arizona Republic a couple days ago.

 

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Ex-Scottsdale man who posed as military hero to be sentenced

Man posed as decorated Marine, was convicted of fraud counts

52 commentsby JJ Hensley - Jul. 25, 2010 09:27 PM

The Arizona Republic

 

 

Sgt. John Rodriguez cut an imposing figure when he was introduced at the Republican committee meeting in the winter of 2008.

 

The decorated Marine and aspiring precinct committeeman came to the event in his green service uniform with some of the military branch's highest honors clearly visible, including the Navy Cross.

 

 

That was the first thing that caught Dan Ryan's eye.

 

"My first reaction was, this guy's a stud," Ryan said. "Then I looked a little more and thought, something's going on here. I'm very, very sensitive about the Navy Cross. I happen to have written one of the citations for the Marine who was killed right next to me in 1967 in Vietnam in a firefight."

 

Ryan's hunch led the former FBI agent to do some digging of his own and ultimately put him in touch with investigators at the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

 

Within a year, the truth was out: Rodriguez, 31, was never in the Marines but had spent years passing himself off as a war hero, gaining access to military bases, getting discounted airline tickets, going to the Marine Corps Ball and briefly getting a job with a local health-care provider that gave him access to sensitive information on veterans.

 

Rodriguez, a former Scottsdale resident, was convicted this month of 12 felony counts of fraud and forgery, most of which carry a presumptive sentence of two to five years in prison. Rodriguez's attorney did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

 

Rodriguez posted $5,400 bail after he was arrested, then failed to appear for his court hearings, leaving him convicted in absentia. This month, detectives in California found Rodriguez near Lake Tahoe, bringing an end to the carefully crafted lie he'd lived.

 

The FBI receives 40 to 50 tips per month about people around the country like Rodriguez, triple the amount the agency received before 9/11.

 

Claiming military service "provides them some sort of feeling of respect," said Lindsay Godwin of the FBI's field office in Washington, D.C., who noted that impostors frequently come out around Memorial Day, Veterans Day and Independence Day.

 

"A lot of the individuals that we've observed that have done this, they usually suffer from some sort of low self-esteem," Godwin said. "This is some immediate gratification for them."

 

While federal agents have seen an uptick in military-hero impersonators in the past decade, investigators say Rodriguez's case was unique.

 

He used his fake military ID to gain access to a base and conned his way into the Marine Corps Ball in Las Vegas.

 

But Rodriguez committed the crimes that would ultimately get him convicted when he signed documents - including job applications and speeding citations - indicating he was a member of the military.

 

Rodriguez's temporary work at TriWest Healthcare Alliance, where he could have accessed confidential information on thousands of veterans, was a cause for concern for investigators.

 

"This guy is such a good con man that he has trained with the local Marine Corps unit here . . . he got in Camp Pendleton in San Diego with his ID," said DPS Detective Roger Wilson. "We started kind of considering this as domestic terrorism. NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service) was very concerned. From that point on, the level of awareness was heightened."

 

In that regard, Rodriguez differs from run-of-the-mill military impersonators who stop at dressing up like soldiers and wearing medals they didn't earn. Simply putting up that facade could violate the Stolen Valor Act, a 2005 federal law that targets fake military heroes. But that law is in dispute after a federal judge in Denver ruled last month that it is an unconstitutional infringement on free-speech rights.

 

Attorney Chris Beall said he wrote a brief in support of the defendant in that case, Rick Strandlof, to protect some of the rights his father and grandfather went into the military to preserve.

 

"The trouble with that (law) is that it puts the government in the position of deciding what lies are prosecutable and what lies are protected by the First Amendment," Beall said. "I, on behalf of the (American Civil Liberties Union), take the view that we are better off allowing some people to lie than allowing the government to decide what the truth is."

 

Rodriguez's extra efforts at deception, including writing a letter to Mesa Justice of the Peace Lester Pearce explaining that he couldn't appear for a court date because he was going on a mission in Iraq, ensured prosecutors wouldn't have to rely on the Stolen Valor Act to convict him.

 

But whether Rodriguez was signing documents claiming to be a war hero or just wearing the uniform, it was enough to agitate Ryan, the former Marine who first encountered Rodriguez at the GOP meeting two years ago.

 

"I've been in the company of men who have unhesitatingly given their all; in the face of sheer peril just got up and did the deal," Ryan said. "Having seen that and having been in the company of men like that, if you claim to even be close to that, you better be right."

 

 

 

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/community/scottsd...l#ixzz0uvIhb1i6