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thedrifter
03-16-06, 06:25 AM
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A Purple Heart
(Ted Dargan/P-D)

Illinois bill targets phony war heroes
By Philip Ewing
POST-DISPATCH SPRINGFIELD BUREAU
Wednesday, Mar. 15 2006

SPRINGFIELD, ILL.

People who pretend to have earned some of the nation's most prestigious
military medals, including the Purple Heart, the Medal of Honor and others,
could pay a fine of up to $200 under a bill being considered today by the state
Senate.

"For one in our society to falsely represent themselves as having received that
very, very important recognition, I think is a serious offense not only in law
but to our morality," said Rep. Dan Burke, D-Chicago, the bill's sponsor.

It makes exceptions for actors, historical re-enactors and costumes at
Halloween.

The measure, which originally applied only to Purple Hearts, has passed the
House unanimously with strong support from veterans groups. A Senate committee
amended it to include other medals, and then endorsed it unanimously Tuesday.

The Purple Heart is awarded to service personnel injured in combat. The other
medals in the legislation, including the Distinguished Service Cross and the
Silver Star, are given for bravery. The Medal of Honor is the highest American
military award for bravery.

The Illinois proposal is part of a growing national wave of sentiment over the
Purple Heart. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - where soldiers and Marines are
wounded almost daily - have made some 19,000 active-duty troops eligible to
receive the Purple Heart, according to the U.S. Defense Department.

Burke does not hold any of those medals, nor is he a veteran. But he has heard
stories about people who buy secondhand decorations and claim to be war heroes.
His legislative colleagues with military experience spoke highly of the
proposal.

One such colleague is Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Greenville, a former Army
paratrooper who received the Purple Heart in Vietnam. Then-Sgt. Stephens spent
18 months recovering after he was shot leading his men in an attack on an enemy
position. Stephens, whose boyhood friend was killed in Vietnam, spoke coldly of
"wannabes" who didn't earn the medals they pin on.

"We find it just disgusting that they want to get some sort of fame on our
coattails, those of us who earned some honor on the field of battle," Stephens
said. "It should be a punishable offense."

He cited a Kane County Circuit Court judge, Michael O'Brien, who resigned in
1995 after admitting he had pretended for 20 years to have received the Medal
of Honor.

"They all had a chance," Stephens said of medal pretenders. "They could've
volunteered. The military could've been part of their life, but they didn't."

The growing number of Purple Heart recipients, in addition to the estimated
500,000 living people who hold the medal, is beginning to wield more clout on
the national stage: They are raising money for the National Purple Heart Hall
of Honor, to be built in the same upstate New York town where then-Gen. George
Washington created the medal.

They joined with Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., to petition that the U.S. Postal
Service keep printing its Purple Heart stamp, which it had planned to
discontinue when raising stamp prices from 37 to 39 cents. After a
letter-writing campaign, the Postal Service agreed at the end of January to
issue a 39-cent version of the stamp.

Also, medal holders support a bill in the Congress, similar to the one proposed
in Illinois, which would make it a federal crime to falsely claim to have
received a Purple Heart and medals such as the Silver Star. (It is a federal
crime, however, to do so with the Medal of Honor.) Still, old medals often can
be had for about $30 in flea markets or secondhand shops, and precise replicas
are also made.

The Illinois bill is HB4121.

Ellie