Can you go to jail for impersonating a soldier?

+1 vote
asked Dec 14, 2019 in Law/Ethics by 717vgy7 (320 points)
Can you go to jail for impersonating a soldier?

1 Answer

0 votes
answered Dec 14, 2019 by Avarado (27,970 points)
Yes you can go to jail for impersonating a soldier when you've never actually been a soldier or in the military at all.

An act of 2005 made it illegal to impersonate a solider and if caught you will be arrested and can serve at least 6 months in jail.

Impersonating a solider became illegal because of the Stolen Valor Act of 2005 which is a law that made it a federal misdemeanor to falsely represent oneself as having received any U.S. military decoration or medal.

If you're convicted of doing so and impersonating a solider you can be imprisoned for up to six months, unless the decoration lied about is the Medal of Honor, in which case imprisonment is for at least a year.

So you should never impersonate a soldier because it's not a good thing to do and it's not worth the jail time or fines either.

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