Help Me Ben: Montana Veteran calls for awareness following handicap parking dispute

“I'm not a hero by any stretch of the imagination. I've been fortunate to march with heroes, but I'm not one of them. I'm just a veteran who answered the call and served the country for six years,” noted Scott.

His service left scars. Scott lives with PTSD, degenerative disk disease, and cardiac complications. His service animal, a friendly German shepherd named Molly, is a constant companion who helps when Scott needs her.

“We've been together three years, and she's fantastic,” Scott beamed. “She is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'm firmly convinced of that.”

On Friday, Aug. 14, 2026, Scott says he had an unusual encounter in Helena while visiting some friends who were operating booths at a gun show at the Lewis and Clark County Fairgrounds. 

“I was fixing to get into my vehicle, and a gentleman come walking across the parking lot here, and he saw me, my vehicle that was parked in the handicapped parking spot, and he asked me, he said, ‘Where's your placard that goes up on your rear view mirror?’ And I said, well, I don't have a placard, I've got these. And I pointed to the disabled veteran plates on my vehicle,” Scott recalled. “He began to curse at me and became just generally argumentative that that was not the case, that those plates did not qualify me to park in a handicapped parking spot.”

Some states, like Texas and Nevada, require a placard along with a Disabled Veteran (DV) plate to park in a handicap spot. However, Montana is not one of them. State law is clear: the “Disabled Veteran” designation on the plate allows for parking in a handicap spot, no placard required.

Getting a disability license plate or placard in Montana is a process, and it's even more involved for a DV plate. To qualify for a disabled veteran plate, the person must have been awarded the Purple Heart and rated as 50% or more disabled because of a service-connected injury, or be currently rated 100% disabled or paid at the 100% disabled rate for a service-connected disability. The person must present all documentation when applying for the plate.

“The last thing he said to me was that, ‘You know, you're the reason that veterans get a bad name,’ and I sincerely hope that is not the case,” said Scott.

Nonstop Local spoke with dozens of people at the fairgrounds on Sunday, including event organizers, who were appalled someone would confront someone with a clearly marked DV plate like that.

“Those gentlemen and women deserve those spots,” said Helena resident Cherie Barnes. “They're disabled vets. They fought for us. You know, they could have died for us. They were willing to do that, and to have some cow come up and tell a gentleman that he can't be parking there when he has the plates, they're visible.”

According to data from the CDC, more than 70 million Americans live with some form of disability. The majority of those individuals may not visibly appear to have a disability.

Scott says he wishes no ill will against the man who confronted him; he just hopes he can help educate people to prevent similar situations from happening to anyone else.

“Please understand, folks, that when you see these veterans in the parking lot to cross Helena or across the state of Montana, there's a reason for them to have that DV plate,” Scott explained. “There's a reason for them to be parked there. They may look 100% and they may look fine, but that's not always the case. Please take that into consideration, I beg of you.”