- Story updated at 6:24 PM on Wednesday, May. 27, 2009
In the past five months, Charles T. White has lost most of his
friends.
After pleading guilty to lying about being a prisoner of war in
Vietnam and earning a Purple Heart, the veteran was kicked out of
the Veterans of Foreign Wars, an organization he’d been part of
for 40 years, holding offices and serving on the honor guard.
U.S. Magistrate Monte Richardson decided Wednesday that punishing
the St. Augustine man more would be egregious. Instead he
sentenced White to one year of probation, waiving mandatory drug
tests and fines.
He faced up to two years in prison and a $200,000 fine for
violating the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it a crime to claim
unearned medals.
Last year White served as a VFW honor guard and was keynote
speaker at a prisoner of war recognition event at Jacksonville
Naval Air Station. During both he claimed to have been a POW and
earned the Purple Heart.
White also falsely claimed to have served on the USS Miller, to
have been head corpsman on the USS Dealey and to have worked at
Cuba Naval Hospital during the Cuban missile crisis.
The sentence he received Wednesday was just, White said during a
brief conversation after the hearing.
“I made a mistake in life,” he said. “I paid for my
mistake.”
The Vietnam veteran, who spent two years in the Navy and 2 1/2 in
the Marines, didn’t explain why he claimed to have earned four
Purple Hearts and have spent 7 1/2 months in a North Vietnamese
prison camp.
“I got involved with programs too heavily,” the 68-year-old
said. “I don’t lie to people. I never have, I never will.”
White is honest, said Robert MacNeil, a fellow veteran who was the
only one to stand by White’s side during the sentencing.
“I know the man,” MacNeil said. “He’s very honest. I
understand why he did it.”
White got caught up in his service to the VFW, MacNeil said, and
was just trying to honor the troops.
But he broke the oaths he took both as a service member and as a
member of the VFW, said Rick Hall, a member of the house committee
of Bryan Tutten Memorial Post 2391 in St. Augustine.
“He’s stolen the honor of all those who earned it and earned
it the hard way,” Hall said. “He’s fallen into disgrace over
this entire thing and has been stricken from the rolls. He can’t
even come in the door.”
timothy.gibbons@jacksonville.com
(904) 359-4103
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How in the hell can a
person be right in the middle of all the honorable men
and women that have endured and another claim what
White claims...and others stand by his side and state
he White is honest and say they understand why he did
it as if to suggest his motive was honorable......wish
to hell they would explain why he did
it.............it just defies human
understanding........
The guy may be 68 but he
deserves a tar and feather job and worse..........what
a signal this sends....... hr
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All I've got to say about White's non-sentence is
"BOO-F'en-HOO".
The courts let the bastard go................again.
A person who's violated The Stolen Valor Act usually has
no real conscience anyway so he probably laughed when he
got home.
Disgusting court decision in my opinion. jf
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