New law targets fake vets
Impersonating a veteran now a crime akin to pretending to be a police officer

Saturday, March 27, 2004

By Richard Roesler, Staff Writer
The Spokane Spokesman-Review

OLYMPIA -- Everyone's seen the cardboard signs clutched by panhandlers at intersections, freeway exits and supermarket parking lots.

"Will work for food." "Pregnant." "Anything helps." "God bless you."

There's one common panhandling sign, however, that state lawmakers hope to soon see a lot less of: "Veteran."

This week, Gov. Gary Locke approved a law making it a crime to profit by falsely claiming to be a military veteran. Among the bill's targets: people wrongly seeking hiring preferences or educational benefits, con men preying on people's sympathies and panhandlers.

"It's one of the worst kinds of fraud. It devalues the concept of being a veteran," said the bill's prime sponsor, Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn. The state Legislature unanimously approved the bill earlier this month.

"It's way overdue," said Chuck Lawrence, a Vietnam veteran living in Sumner, Wash. "I was just fed up, as was most of the veteran community."

Lawrence said his own father-in-law ripped off a friend for $10,000 by falsely pretending to be an ex-Navy SEAL left penniless by a government paperwork foul-up.

"These people, they leech off the public," he said. "They're a blight."

Starting July 1, falsely claiming to be a veteran "with intent to defraud for personal gain" will be considered criminal impersonation in the second degree. That's a misdemeanor, punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. A similar law already exists for people pretending to be police officers.

Reactions among local veterans and homeless advocates were mixed.

Dick Powell, a veteran and volunteer with Disabled American Veterans, Spokane, said the law's not a good idea.

"We've got enough laws. I don't think we need one for impersonating a vet," he said. "Look at your prosecutors -- they don't have the time. It just creates more of a backlog."

Another Spokane veteran, World War II sailor Garland Enberg, said there are some -- but not many -- real homeless veterans who panhandle.

"There are a few of them that are legitimate," he said. "They've just picked that way to go."

Enberg has long volunteered to help homeless veterans and helped put together a veterans' day-labor program, now defunct. He volunteers at health care events for homeless vets, and set up a library at the veterans' home in Spokane. It bothers him when he encounters fake veterans, he said, but he questions whether the law will deter them.

"I don't think it will have a lot of effect," he said. "These people take going to jail like missing a meal."

Kari Reese, a public relations coordinator at the Union Gospel Mission in Spokane, likes the new law. She's seen real homeless veterans weep, overcome with emotion, when honored at veterans' events at the mission.

"I feel like it is kind of a slap in the face for those men when others use it (the title `veteran') and throw it around like it means nothing," she said. "It's just another con, but it's even worse, because it dishonors them."

D.E. Twitchell, a Vietnam-era veteran in Spokane, agrees that it's unlikely that local police will devote much time to truth-squadding panhandlers about their personal histories. But he still supports the law.

"I've got nothing against panhandling. I've given money to guys with a sign reading, `I need a beer,' because they're honest," said Twitchell. But, he said, it irks him to see fake veterans.

Sen. Roach said she thinks the law will be used.

"I think in fact we will find this will be enforced," she said. "The people support this bill. It's not something that's going to be overlooked."

She also thinks the law will encourage veterans to question panhandlers and others who say they served in the military.

Twitchell's done that a couple of times. The former drill sergeant once confronted a man asking for cigarettes at Spokane's bus station. The man wore a military field jacket, with several medals dangling from it. Twitchell questioned the man, who said he'd been a B-52 navigator in the Air Force.

So Twitchell mentioned a well-known military slang term -- unprintable in a family newspaper -- for the big bomber, and asked the man what the term meant. He didn't know.

"I told him I didn't want to see him wearing those medals again or I'd take it personally and kick his ass," said the 59-year-old Twitchell.