LI man busted for 'pretending' to be soldier

A Long Island man was arrested for donning an Army uniform and brazenly posing as a soldier so he'd get bumped up to first class on a flight to JFK from the Dominican Republic, Port Authority cops have charged.

Rock Diaz, 22, of Freeport, has a history of pretending to be a military man to get VIP treatment, cops said -- he once even smooth-talked his way into a jetliner's cockpit, where he was photographed sitting at the controls wearing a goofy grin.

The mile-high huckster was finally brought to earth Friday afternoon when a sharp-eyed customs official at JFK asked him his rank -- and he gave an answer that didn't match the insignia on the uniform he was wearing.

Yes, I'm familiar with the arguments that were made, but I have several objections to them.

First, to wear an award, rank etc. and to hold one's self out as somebody who has earned that award or promotion is to (mis)represent the legitimate paper trail that would accompany that award or the holding of that rank. In other words, it's tantamount to falsifying government documents. There really is no difference between one sitting at home on their computer and generating a document indicating they've been awarded a DSC, and wearing the medal itself. As the courts came down, falsifying the medal order on paper is a crime, but wearing and verbally claiming to have won the award is not. It's like making it a crime to forge a certificate of title, but saying it's ok to simply drive off in the car.

My second caveat is that it's more akin to counterfeit than other forms of fraud. The mere existence of a fraudulent five dollar bill victimizes every person who legitimately holds a real five dollar bill by virtue of the fact that it lessens the value or 'prestige' of the five dollar bill. Similarly, the prestige of a Navy Cross, or a First Sergeant's rank insignia are lessened when you have 1 or 1,000 people out there running around claiming those honors when they're not rightfully entitled to them.

The only reason our currency has value is because our government says it does. Shooting down the SVA is essentially saying that the government has no right to place value (albeit other than a monetary one) on military awards, decorations, rank, etc. Keep in mind that our law already recognizes that there are things of value that can not be expressed in monetary terms.

“Who are you calling old?”

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Fewer and fewer people these days...but fortunately, most of the people who outrank me are still older than I am. When that changes, in go the papers.

Colonel, USAFR

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