Life already ruined, lying First Coast vet gets light sentence

In all honesty, I want to feel sorry for this man because I'm sure he helped a lot of people, but I can't. I really want to understand why he did this and ended up hurting the very people he was claiming he cared about. How can any of them do this?

I've met award recipients and most downplay the medals they earned. I've met heroes that never received a medal but the service they give to others is outstanding. One is not a prerequisite for the other. So why fabricate a story they know is false and sooner or later will be proven false? Did they think about the people that trusted them? Did they think about what something like this would do to them? No one wants to be made a fool out of but to be made to feel foolish for believing in someone you trusted for years leaves a bitterness beyond belief behind.

Life already ruined, lying First Coast vet gets light sentence
Florida Times-Union - Jacksonville,FL,USA
By Timothy J. Gibbons 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.” click link for the rest