I too feel this way about the OP.
Imposters think of medals the same way they some people think about make-up: The more the better.
As to getting the wrong medals - they just grab what they can from sellers at shows/pawn shops and assume everyone will be as ignorant as they are. The result is “Marines” wearing SEAL Tridents (you’ll need to scroll down to see the picture).
As best I can tell, he has the Medal of Bravery, the Special Service Medal, the Canadian Peacekeeping Service Medal, a NATO Medal for Operations in the Balkans and the Canadian Forces Decoration. He got the left-to-right order correct, at least.
They’re separate offences. There’s no requirement that the wearing of the uniform is intended to benefit the individual. It’s an offence to wear the uniform and insignia.
You got something against over-achievers?!? 
Ottawa police are now investigating possible criminal offence:
Well I understand that they are separate, I’m confused as to why it sits inside the section that deals with fraud. My guess is that I’m assuming a relationship that isn’t there.
But as I said before I don’t understand the rational for the law outside from “don’t do that”. As read the person doesn’t even have to act in a manner of the service he or she is dressed up as. It would be like a law preventing people dressing up in those gowns used by lawyers and judges.
Well, aside from the Medal of Bravery, and apparently the pathfinder pin cited in the article, his collection isn’t that extraordinary. The main problem (aside from the sunglasses - seriously, dude, you can get military-issue sunglasses, but nobody wears them at a Remembrance Day event) is as described in the article - he chose a specific regiment without realizing that other members of that regiment would (or at least might) be present and would wonder why they didn’t know who he was. Somebody with an MB who was also airborne-qualified would certainly be well-known within his unit.
Truth be told, I can’t see anything immediately wrong with his uniform, except that his beret is too small and, dude… sunglasses… yeesh, but I’m not infantry.
Of course, now I’m really curious what he said during his interview with Diana Swain.
It would really piss me off if some buttnugget did something like this to gain benefits he wasn’t otherwise entitled to, but in this case, it appears the guy is just a wacko in dire need of some serious professional help.
Ha, I found the footage. His beret looks awful.
Yeah–in terms of the fucked up things people have done while wearing military uniforms in the past decade, this doesn’t make the top ten thousand.
His collar dogs are way crooked, his lenses are way out of regs, and his beard is pretty screwed up as well. The Citizen did an infographic pointing out the many ways in which he’s incorrect. I think one of his badges is actually out of date as well.
Is he wearing lion buttons? EWWWWWW…!
I wasn’t sure how the RCR wears their collar dogs - I couldn’t see them well enough.
He’s wearing a 34th Canadian Brigade Group patch at his wedding. I wear that patch. I’m re-offended.
A former Army guy myself, I was awestruck at how phony he looks. I could do a better job masquerading as Kim Kardashian. The beret is a dead giveaway, for one, but like all these guys, he decided he just had to be a Sooper Elite Soldier, with the Bravery medal and the Patrol Pathfinder badge, which you basically only get if you can kick Chuck Norris’s ass. Nobody ever masquerades as just some ordinary, unremarkable schmoe who muddled through their 20 years as a vehicle tech and got a CD and a pension, maybe one overseas ribbon.
That said, quite honestly, my opinion of these people - there seems to be a limitless supply of them, literally thousands and thousands - is in line with** Bouncer.** I find myself pitying them. A person has to feel very shitty about themselves to impersonate a job they are not solely, by all accounts, to get admiration. It’s not like someone faking a degree or a qualification of some kind to swindle money, or get a job they aren’t entitled to, a la Frank “Catch Me If You Can” Abignale - there at least there’s theft and greed I can be angry at. This guy is just a pathetic case, and I feel sorry for him.
The fact that his WIFE apparently went along with this also suggests a degree of codependent lunacy on a scale I can only begin to imagine.
Did the wife know? They only got married last year.
Maybe he just kept telling her that Army had a half-day.
Bolding mine. I wasn’t aware that my grandfathers served in WWII just for shits and giggles.
On behalf of the many veterans in my family, I cordially invite you to go fornicate with a table saw.
How about another veteran weighing in?
Let’s see…you can’t steal someone’s valor, their heroism. What you can do is pretend to be someone heroic or someone brave. It’s sad but making it illegal is kind of going against that whole freedom of speech thing, unless, of course, the person gains some monetary or other material advantage from his pretense without the provider of said advantage being aware of the pretense in advance. Also sad is the aforementioned frothing at the mouth and threats (assuming someone actually issued threats) against the pretender. Well, the threatening is not only sad but is illegal and for a mighty good reason.
Your humble military retiree, Monty.
I wasn’t talking about Boyo Jim’s comments on stolen valor so much, it’s stupid to pretend to be a vet, because they’re not useful, like nurses. THAT’S what pissed me off.
The whole impersonating a soldier thing looks more like a case of fraud than anything else.
I understood that and agree with you.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all that the individual in this story wore the faked-up garb at his wedding because he had already been pulling the stunt and getting some kind of recompense for it, thus no way to explain away not wearing the garb at the wedding to his wife.