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Stolen valor: Fla. vet tells panhandler, 'Take off my uniform'

Garret Goodwin posted a video online showing his confrontation with a Tampa panhandler he believes to have been wearing a fraudulent Army uniform.

By Ben Hooper
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TAMPA, Fla., March 31 (UPI) -- A Florida veteran posted video of his confrontation with a panhandler he suspected of stealing valor by wearing a fraudulent U.S. Army uniform.

Garret Goodwin, a Tampa resident who served as an Army combat medic from 1994 to 2003, said he was driving Sunday to MacDill Air Force Base when he spotted a panhandler in South Tampa wearing a yellow high visibility vest over an Army uniform.

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Goodwin said his suspicions were raised when he noticed a Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, or JROTC, patch on the man's uniform.

"Show me your veterans ID card," Goodwin demands in the video, which he posted to Facebook and YouTube.

"I don't have one, sir," the unidentified panhandler replies.

"Then take off my uniform!" Goodwin shouts.

"Yes, sir," the man replies, while hurriedly walking away from Goodwin.

Goodwin said he would have seen to it that the man received help if he had turned out to be a legitimate veteran.

"And I would have made sure he had a place to live and food in his stomach and the services he needed," Goodwin told WFTS-TV. "But he wasn't a veteran."

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The video received many comments praising Goodwin, but some were critical and accused him of acting like a bully.

"Some people have called me a bully on the internet, and I think he's a bully wearing a uniform holding up a sign walking up to people's cars in an intersection looking for money. I think he's bullying people out of their money," he said.

Goodwin said his demeanor may have also been influenced by the recent death of a friend who was a veteran.

"Maybe one of the reasons I was so into this yesterday is tomorrow I'm burying a good friend who is a Marine...I'm putting that man in the ground tomorrow," Goodwin told WTVT-TV. "And I think that seeing this guy in uniform and wearing the uniform that my brothers and sisters have died in, it was more than I was willing to stand and take."

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