Stolen Valor Act stalls

[thedrifter]

September 29, 2006
Stolen Valor Act stalls

By John Hoellwarth
Staff writer

In a major legislative reprieve for posers who claim to rate combat decorations they didn’t earn, the House Judiciary Committee failed to take action on a Senate-approved bill outlawing medals fraud during the committee’s last meeting before Congress adjourns Oct. 1.

The Stolen Valor Act, introduced in the House in the summer of 2005 by Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., closes a loophole in current law that allows phony combat veterans to escape prosecution as long as they don’t physically wear the awards they brag about.


Currently, medals fakers and con artists can put awards like the Silver Star, Navy Cross and Medal of Honor on their resumes and license plates without violating the law.

Legislation introduced in the House and Senate prescribes hefty fines and up to a year in jail for posers who try to pass themselves off as war heroes.

A version of the bill introduced in the Senate by Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., was passed unanimously by that chamber Sept. 7. But the bill has been stalled in the House Judiciary Committee since then, despite having more than 100 cosponsors — including five judiciary committee members.

“As a cosponsor of the Stolen Valor Act and a member of the House Judiciary Committee, I am disappointed that the committee did not take action on this legislation prior to the committee’s adjournment,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.

Rep. Bob Beauprez, R-Colo., who personally called the committee’s leaders to push the Stolen Valor Act out of committee, called the bill’s failure to reach the floor “enormously frustrating.”

Decorated war veterans also support the effort.

“I’m not a big proponent of the federal government regulating us, but I just feel this is a piece of legislation that needs to be passed because there are just so many men and women who have given their life and their limbs defending this nation,” said Peter Lemon, who received the Medal of Honor for actions in Vietnam on April 1, 1970.

Lemon said he called “a number of influential congressmen” this week in an attempt to encourage them to bring the bill to a vote.

“A lot of guys I served with ... I know what they did, what they went through. My guys, I honor them,” Lemon said. “To think that someone else would be posing as the recipient of one of their awards, when I know what they’ve been through, just disgusts me.”

Congress leaves Washington to hit the campaign trail Oct. 1, but the House Judiciary Committee will reconvene twice more, once in November and once in December, before the current congressional session ends.

Beauprez said the bill has a shot to make it out of committee at one of these meetings and onto the suspension calendar, a docket of pending bills that Congress addresses at the end of the day because they largely require only rubber-stamp approval.

“This one will almost certainly move on the suspension calendar — once it gets on,” Beauprez said.

But that can’t happen until the committee makes it happen, he said. “Where we’re at right now, we’re probably looking at next year,” he added.

But Salazar said he has not given up hope that his bill will pass by the end of December.

“Our nation is at war and Congress should have acted immediately to protect the honor of our veterans,” Salazar said. “We cannot let this become a partisan issue. I will continue to fight to protect our veterans and make sure the Stolen Valor Act is passed by the end of the year.”

If the legislation stays bottled up in committee during the lame- duck sessions in November and December, it will have to be re-introduced in the House and Senate during the next session of Congress, essentially pushing the initiative back to square one.

Both Salazar and Beauprez said the momentum built up behind the legislation this year will certainly help it along next year, if it comes to that.

“With more than 100 supporters in Congress, the Stolen Valor Act is well on its way to becoming law,” Salazar said.

Ellie

[jinelson]

Stolen Valor Act

Stolen valor legislation moving through CongressBy CATHERINE STORTZ RIPLEY/C-T News Editor
Saturday, November 18, 2006 9:24 PM CST

Claiming to have received the military's second-highest honor may be unethical but most likely not illegal. However, legislation is working its way through Congress that would make many of these types of situations criminal acts.

Just this week, U.S. Congressman Sam Graves added his name as a co-sponsor to the Stolen Valor Act which was introduced by Colorado Congressman John Salazar. The legislation would penalize distributors of phony medals and those who fraudulently claim to be decorated veterans. Salazar's legislation would place criminal penalties on those who falsely claim to have risked their lives for our country, restoring honor to those who have truly earned it.

“As soon as I learned of these misrepresentations, I contacted Congressman Salazar's office to add my name as a co-sponsor to the Stolen Valor Act,” Graves said. “It is reprehensible and unethical to claim unearned military decorations, but unfortunately it is not illegal. Congress needs to close this loophole so we can protect the integrity of those who have truly earned these military honors and prosecute those who fraudulently claim these awards.”

Graves said that he plans to bring the matter to the attention of House leadership “to help ensure we move forward on the Stolen Valor Act.”

The Stolen Valor Act was inspired by a paper written by Pamla Sterner, a student at Colorado State University at Pueblo, to tighten a loophole for people fraudulently wearing military awards. Sterner's husband, Doug, operates homeofheroes.com, a Web site dedicated to honoring veterans.

Mary Schantag, who runs the Skidmore, Mo., nonprofit POW Network with her husband, Charles, that exposes people who claim military awards they have not earned, says passage of the act is needed not only because individuals are stealing other people's valor, but because of the impact such activities can have.

“We've got to increase the penalties,” she said. “We've got to find a way to stop this because these guys are literally changing the history of Vietnam and our conflicts.”

Schantag has been involved in investigating the claims made by Jim Fields, who delivered the keynote address at the Veterans Day service in Chillicothe on Saturday. Fields claimed to have received the Navy Cross, which is the military's second-highest honor; however, today (Friday), he told the Constitution-Tribune that he didn't have the Navy Cross and later reportedly told the Marine Corps Times newspaper that he never made reference to having the Navy Cross.

“You've got to figure that if Fields went out there and started telling stories, he had an entire audience believing he was something he was not,” Schantag said.

Some people falsely claiming military service and honors believe their actions to be harmless.

“They think it is a victimless crime and it is not,” Schantag said. “There are families, veterans, people who listen. It's not right. It is morally wrong, ethically wrong.”

Donald Ballard, who is Missouri's only living Medal of Honor recipient, is a strong proponent of the legislation and said that even Fields had expressed support for getting the Stolen Valor Act passed.

“One of the discussions we had was that he talked about helping us find these phonies,” Ballard said.

Ballard said that with pending legislation, it would be wise for Fields to set the record straight.

“He better admit it now because it's going to be a felony very shortly,” he said. “If this law passes and you still claim you've got it, it will be a criminal offense.”

Ballard predicts that there will be a “major turnover” in exposing fraudulent heroes regarding many honors, including the bronze star, distinguished server and silver stars.

Pursuing fake heroes is nothing new to Special agent Thomas A. Cottone Jr., with the FBI in West Paterson, N.J., who says that he has worked on a couple hundred cases involving stolen valor - from medal of honor impostors to other individuals wearing very high military awards.

He told of one case in which an individual posed as a highly decorated Marine captain sitting with the family of a Marine killed in action. The man, who had lifetime memberships to numerous military organizations, confessed that he had never even served in the military. In another case, Cottone was receiving the Honorary Marine Award along with another individual during a prestigious ceremony. However, it was proved that the other individual receiving the honor had 21 unearned combat awards. He was later court-martialed and convicted.

Cottone is outraged by what some individuals try to pass off as truth.

“They are not someone just playing dress-up,” Cottone said. “They are stealing acts of valor. They are there to steal the unearned admiration and respect and, literally, steal the acts of valor that real service men and women did to earn those things.”

The impostors go out of their way to be in the spotlight and get anyone to listen to them, he said. These actions are very different than those shown by individuals who actually receive these honors.

“Most of them, to a fault, are the most humble people,” he said. “Most of the real people who have been there, done that are humble.”

Jim :mad: