Someone pretending to have a military decoration, or to have served in the armed forces, when they haven't?
"Pshaw! The very idea!"
That phrase in quotes there is about what the penalty should be, for the act described in the first sentence. Sort of like what your grandmother might have said about some young lady wearing her skirts above the ankle, or if you had proposed waffles as a main course for dinner. "It's just not done!" she might have added.
Now, some of the puniest legal minds in the country (that's our Congress, generally) have proposing to make such "stolen valor" a crime, a silly suggestion that seems likely only to waste the Supreme Court's time.
There have always been pretenders. Those who falsely say they earned a medal, or put a lie on a resume, or pretend to be someone they're not, will always exist but it's not automatically a crime. It may be a crime, if it can be shown that someone has been damaged by the false claim.
Usually in these cases, however, it's simple enough to stop the lies. Most, if not all, false claims can be checked; it's just that too many people don't want to take the trouble to do so. If you hire someone for a job only because he says he's a veteran, you're probably an idiot and you may get what you deserve; but if that's one factor you'd like to consider, you just ask him/her to produce evidence of the claim. If that same person applies for Veterans benefits, he'd be stopped dead in his tracks if he couldn't corroborate the claim. Some politicians have been found to claim military service that didn't exist, but they are easily thwarted if the press just insists they prove it.
So it's only when some evident malfeasance occurs that such false claims should be punishable -- e.g., someone who has no medical training but is posing as a doctor; or the person who obtains a social benefit like social security or cost-free treatment at a veterans hospital by falsely claiming eligibility. My own favorite complaint on this score is people who obtain police uniforms and insignia (it's legal but it shouldn't be) and misuse them. Such cases are clear violations of law; they can and should be prosecuted.
The "Stolen Valor" Act, as it's being called, is far more about political posturing than about law. Elected representatives are seeking to curry favor with at least some groups of voters by helping make sacred cows more sacred. It doesn't matter how "narrowly drawn" the proposed law is. It shouldn't exist at all.
On a personal note, I would point out that when I mustered out of the army, some wise person suggested I have my discharge form recorded at my county registrar of deeds. I did. It's good advice. As it turned out, I'm pretty sure my military records were among many destroyed by a fire in a St. Louis depository for government documents in the 1970s. I do have a copy of my DD-214, but in a pinch, I would know where to find a legally valid certified copy.
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