As I am sure you know the term came from the title of a book. The book dealt with exposing Viet Nam fakers like Brian Dennehy. But it also dealt with exposing myths about Viet Nam vets. The term is not a perfect description but it is catchy and the book was instrumental in shining a light on the issue. In the UK they call the fakers ‘Walts’ for Walter Mitty.
I just spit my coffee onto my keyboard. Thanks for that one!
Look guys, I realize my OP was over the top, but this is the Pit so I laid it on a bit thick.
I didn’t invent the term “stolen valour”, but that’s the definition of the term. Deal with it.
From Grey:
For clarification, they’re not my hordes, sadly it is a fact. The family has received threats and talk radio, comments sections, etc… are full of angry veterans who would like to confront him.
I do feel sorry for his wife and family who have been dragged onto the front pages.
As an RCAF brat whose father, uncles, grandmother, grandfathers, great grand-fathers all served, I am mildly offended that someone would dare to don a uniform and claim things like “We fought together. It’s brothers”.
I am more pissed off that he would choose to attend the service this year after recent events on that very site and on Parliament Hill. It has turned the whole event into a fiasco about this asshole.
The only thing turning the event into a fiasco about this jerk is the fact that people care more about a loser playing dressup than the event itself.
People care so much about this particular type of dressup that they have criminalized it, even when the only thing “stolen” is a bit of respect.
Damn it man get on that. Personally everyone should have a horde or two just in case the in-laws drop by.
See I don’t actually have a problem with publicly shaming this guy, it’s the use of the law to punish him for being an ass that I object to.
More than that would make you a horder.
I’ll show myself out.
Most Canadian soldiers I know do not wear their dress uniforms at their own weddings. Some do, most don’t. My brother-in-law didn’t. It’s a personal preference thing, so, really, he didn’t have to to keep up the charade.
It seems almost impossible to me that he could do it and get away with it this long. I guess it must have been a very small wedding.
Careful, you don’t want to collect too many hordes or you’ll be a… DAMNIT!
Inicnetally, I feel obliged to provide a real example to show why the fakers always look like fakers.
Here’s a picture of Bill Fletcher, an old friend of mine. We were in basic training together - our bunks were literally ten feet apart.
As you will note from the story, Bill is an absolute no-doubt-about-it war hero, a soldier who legitimately did things of such bravery and gallantry as to defy the imagination. (I am amused to report he did not graduate as the #1 student from boot camp. You could tell he would make a fine soldier, though.)
If you’ll examine his uniform, though, he doesn’t look like a cartoon. He bears only five medals, though one is the rare Star of Military Valour. He does have jumper’s wings. The uniform is otherwise pretty modest. He is also clean shaven, which almost all soldiers are. He doesn’t look like he’s trying too hard.
Never having served in the Canadian Armed Forces, I might be missing something subtle, but the two men’s uniforms look similar to me. Each have 5 medals and the jumper wings.
Yes, the beard and the way the fake guy wears his beret (and the sunglasses!) look off, but the medals and the uniform look exactly the same to me.
My guess is that the death threats and other raging comes almost entirely from people who are not, themselves, veterans either.
I’d agree for the death threats, but not for the general outrage. There are a lot of current service members and veterans who are peeved.
LOL - in my experience, RNs viciously despise “pretend nurses”. In fact, I’d take my chances with angry soldiers over angry nurses any day. 
I’m torn between “Cite please” and “Pics or it didn’t happen.”
Yyyyup.
Hell, I worked with librarians. You don’t have a MLS and you call yourself a librarian, they’ll cut you. Slowly.
There is also this - a pretend nurse could kill if they impersonated a nurse and tried to do the job, while a pretend soldier could fail to kill if they did likewise. 
And free breakfast at Denny’s, no doubt!
Having done some joint activities with Canadian forces (mostly drinking in bars in NYC during Fleet Week), one of the first things I noticed about Canadian uniforms was the distinct lack of ribbons and medals. My full ribbon rack consists of 18 awards, 7 of which are medals. Most of the Canadians in attendance had 6 or fewer total awards. It was really conspicuous. They said that we all looked like tin-pot dictators, and we said they all looked like boots. Someone with more experience with specific Canadian awards can better parse the awards on the guy in the OP, but the story seems to say that he is wearing very rare awards.
I also find that odd. It seems like family and friends that attended the wedding would know if he had served, or was currently serving, in the military.
It’s like putting on your Facebook page that you graduated from MIT or some Ivy League school, etc. when you never attended one of those institutions. Wouldn’t family members and other people who had known you most or all your life call you out or at least start asking questions?
The headings for the different Parts of the Criminal Code are just intended to be general descriptors; they don’t dictate the content of the particular offences. This Part seems to contain offences with a common element of deceptive conducts of different types. Actually benefitting from the deceptive conduct doesn’t appear to be required for this particular offence, but this offence does fit with the theme of deceptive conduct.
I think that the key here is that the section is aimed at the misuse of government uniforms, medals and documents. The uniform is not the personal property of any individual, it’s an indicator that the wearer is a member of the Canadian Armed Forces and is thus a representative/agent/soldier for the Government of Canada. The Government has the right to control the use of uniforms and so on which mark the wearer as a government agent, and to prevent anyone else from holding themselves out as a government agent.
Note that the section only applies to Canadian Armed Forces uniforms. If the guy had dressed up as a US Navy Seal or a UK SAS, he would not have committed any offence. Nor would he have committed any offence if he just said that he was a vet, or just bragged about his “service” in different areas. It’s the wearing of a government uniform in a manner that suggests he’s a member of the Canadian Armed Forces that is targetted by the offence.
The offence controls the use of Government of Canada insignia, but is not concerned with military wannabes who use any other country’s insignia, or with liars.
There actually are laws along those lines. It is an offence under provincial law to falsely hold oneself out as a lawyer, even if the person doesn’t take any financial benefit from it. So a person who is in a court house, wearing the lawyer garb, and allowing people to think that he’s a lawyer, could be committing that offence.
See the Ontario Law Society Act:
[QUOTE=Legislature of Ontario]
Non-licensee holding out, etc.
26.1(2) Subject to subsections (6) and (7), no person, other than a licensee whose licence is not suspended, shall hold themself out as, or represent themself to be, a person who may practise law in Ontario or a person who may provide legal services in Ontario.
[/QUOTE]
There is a common theme there with the prohibition on the false wearing of a Canadian Armed Forces uniform: all lawyers are officers of the court and have legal authorities which other people do not have. It is not appropriate for someone who is not a lawyer to hold oneself out as a lawyer.
And before anyone asks, it’s not just lawyers; there is a similar offence of falsely holding oneself out as a nurse, in the Nursing Act:
[QUOTE=Legislature of Ontario]
Representations of qualification, etc.
11 (5) No person other than a member shall hold himself or herself out as a person who is qualified to practise in Ontario as a nurse, registered nurse, practical nurse or nurse practitioner or in a specialty of nursing. 2009, c. 26, s. 18 (6).
[/QUOTE]
So a person wearing nursing garb in a hospital who allows people to think he/she is a nurse could similarly run afoul of this provision.