A California Marine veteran in Sacramento made a spectacle of himself after displaying rude and boorish behavior towards an elderly veteran wearing a camouflage t-shirt, accusing him of stolen valor.
Veteran Alex Wolpert was caught on camera as he assaulted a 70-year-old Laotian man wearing a camo t-shirt, which did not even appear to be actual military attire.
Upset by the attire of the elderly man, Wolpert shouted angrily at the man, asking why he was wearing the shirt.
The man’s daughter -identified as Van Khon- said her father does not speak English well and was rather confused and fearful.
“I don’t understand how somebody can get this angry over an elderly man wearing camouflage t-shirt who never argued one word back to him,” she wrote on social media. He’s ok but when this happened he was paralyzed, confused from fear and shock.”
Not getting the answers he wanted, Wolpert escalated things to the next level.
“He grabbed my father by his collar pulling his key necklace he had on and fist closed threatening he’s going to kill him and how dare he wear that when his friends died in war,” Khon recalled, adding that Wolpert was “yelling at him [that] he should go back to his country he’s not welcomed here and accused him of being a Vietnamese communists.”
Anything but a communist, Khon’s father fought against the communists during the Vietnam War in Laos, where they were all but abandoned -and many suffered cruel fates- when the US began sending troops home.
Wolpert was seemingly unaware as he continued to berate the man.
Khon’s father was whisked away by his family, and, after the video had been seen hundreds of thousands of times and shared all over the internet, Wolpert was eventually identified as a Marine Reservist and issued the following apology:
“To whom it may concern,
On behalf of my recent actions I apologize, I was way out of line and I caused havoc and disrespect to not only myself but my family as well, since this incident my family and I have received multiple death threats and are having our public information posted via online.
to the gentlemen I accused and assaulted, Words cannot describe the amount of sincerity I have for this situation, you and your family did not deserve this at all. to simply apologize for my actions will never be enough as it was not excusable by any means at all, you deserve respect and appreciation and both of which i did not show you. I understand your forgiveness is not deserved by me and I have to accept what I have done. I can only hope this did not leave a scarring image on you or your family as it has me. I would like to apologize in person as words written cannot express the sincerity one can portray with verbal communication. again this incident has permanently scarred me and I can only hope it has not you, I do not deserve your forgiveness nor your sympathy as I only have myself to blame for this incident. Seeing my actions and my words have disgusted me. I only hope that you can forgive me and my actions. On your behalf I sincerely apologize and ask your forgiveness.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.”
According to Fox 40, the family has yet to comment on the matter.
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