Female Air Force veteran receives angry note for parking in spot reserved for vets

A female Air Force veteran and mother is fighting back after she was left an angry note on her car for taking a parking spot reserved for veterans.

After four years in the Air Force overseas, Mary Claire Caine didn't expect a battle at home -- and at the grocery store of all places. But when she walked to her car, she found the nasty note plastered to the front window.

The note said, "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."

Caine said, "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."

So she considered something else.

"I think they saw, 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," said Caine.

Caine said people often assume the title of "veteran" belongs to just men.

"They have this image of what today's American veteran is," she said. "And honestly, if you have served in the United States military, you know that veterans come in all shapes and sizes."

Caine knows the odds of finding the note's author are slim to none, but if she did, it would not be her alone they would owe an apology to.

"They owe me and every other female service member who is fighting now and who has fought in the past an apology for jumping to conclusions," she said.