--- title: Female Veteran Gets Sexist Note For Parking in Veterans-Only Spot description: Nasty letter-writer assumed she wasn't a veteran canonical: https://time.com/3678382/female-veteran-shamed-for-parking-in-veterans-only-spot/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-22T19:37:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:56:38.148Z og:title: Female Veteran Shamed For Parking in Veterans-Only Spot og:description: Nasty letter-writer assumed she wasn't a veteran og:url: https://time.com/3678382/female-veteran-shamed-for-parking-in-veterans-only-spot/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt146d3b2e97c44679/69877b5bcd68484725099463/female-veteran.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Profile of United States Marine saluting og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Female Veteran Shamed For Parking in Veterans-Only Spot twitter:description: Nasty letter-writer assumed she wasn't a veteran twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt146d3b2e97c44679/69877b5bcd68484725099463/female-veteran.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Female Veteran Shamed For Parking in Veterans-Only Spot  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Jan 22, 2015 7:37 PM UTC  Profile of United States Marine saluting Profile of United States Marine salutingGetty Images  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Jan 22, 2015 7:37 PM UTC A female Air Force veteran parked in a veterans-only parking spot, and somebody wasn’t happy about it. Mary Claire Caine of Wilmington, N.C., returned to her car after a trip to the grocery store and found this nasty note on her windshield: “Maybe \[you\] can’t read the sign you parked in front of … This space is reserved for those who fought for America … not you. Thanks, Wounded Vet.” Actually, Caine was stationed in Kuwait and served on the flight line of the F-117 Nighthawk. She told [WECT](http://www.wect.com/story/27885350/veteran-slammed-with-nasty-note-for-parking-in-reserved-spot) that her two kids always get excited whenever there’s a veteran-reserved parking space open at the supermarket. Caine said she was shocked to find the note on her window. “For a split second I thought, ‘Am I a worthy enough veteran to park in this spot?’ And, then I got very angry at myself for even considering that,” she said. “I think they took one look at me when I got out of my car and saw that I was a woman and assumed I wasn’t a veteran and assumed I hadn’t served my country,” Caine told WECT. “They have this image of what today’s American veteran is and honestly if you’ve served in the United States military, you know that veterans come in all shapes and sizes. I question whether the person who left the note was fully aware of that.” “I want them to know they owe me and every other female service member who’s fighting now and who’s fought in the past, an apology for jumping to conclusions,” she said. \[[WECT](http://www.wect.com/story/27885350/veteran-slammed-with-nasty-note-for-parking-in-reserved-spot)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3678382/female-veteran-shamed-for-parking-in-veterans-only-spot/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3678382/female-veteran-shamed-for-parking-in-veterans-only-spot/"},"headline":"Female Veteran Shamed For Parking in Veterans-Only Spot","datePublished":"2015-01-22T19:37:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:56:38.148Z","description":"Nasty letter-writer assumed she wasn't a veteran","url":"https://time.com/3678382/female-veteran-shamed-for-parking-in-veterans-only-spot/","keywords":["Living","Veterans","Army","sexism"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt146d3b2e97c44679/69877b5bcd68484725099463/female-veteran.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Alter","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt146d3b2e97c44679/69877b5bcd68484725099463/female-veteran.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Profile of United States Marine saluting","caption":"Profile of United States Marine saluting","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3678382/female-veteran-shamed-for-parking-in-veterans-only-spot/","name":"Female Veteran Shamed For Parking in Veterans-Only Spot"}}]}] ```