We were sent Art Brownstein by a fellow Green Beret after reading an article in the SunSentinel. We share a screen shot of the original article in the photo section.
In the article Art Brownstein, fake Green Beret, claims Special Forces in Vietnam. We see no proof he was even stationed in Vietnam as his summary sheet of awards, show no awards one would get had he been in country. we see no language schooling. We see no Airborne training.
We see roughly 16 months active duty as a Pers Mngt Spec, Recreation Spec, and finally a Personnel Spec.
We reached out to the SunSentinel for clarification and sent them his NPRC records result. They put us in contact with the original author of the story. We sent him Arts records also. He was very concerned about correcting it and reached out to Art for His side of the story. Below is Art's responce. It looks like he doubles down on his claims:
So sorry Mort, looks like you got into trouble on my account, you should know I paid no attention to anything you wrote about Vietnam and think I told you before that part of my life, I would very much like to forget, but I will fill in the blanks........
My service was three years not two and when you mentioned two, I thought you specifically were referring to Special Forces, not my entire military! You can tell your guy I did 36 weeks at Fort Bragg, N.C. three weeks at jump school in Fort Benning, GA and was attached to the 5th Special Forces Unit in Nha Trang, Vietnam, the Riviera of South East Asia and did TDY in Pleiku, Da Nang and Hue and was actually at the My Canh Floating Restaurant in Saigon Harbor when it blew up and let him know I was involved with Operation Phoenix and if he is a true Special Forces guy, he might understand, although anybody who would volunteer for two extra tours in Vietnam, I would question their sanity!
He is right about the drug thing, don't know we were worried about finding drugs for anything but our own use! Sorry I didn't correct that, but Mort, gotta tell ya, I'm not reliving any part of Vietnam, so if they want to pull the article because of that, perfectly okay, thought the piece was on my current events classes, not my war record, but let them do whatever they feel like!
Art
Originally the SunSentinel seemed very concerned about correcting the article and also wanted to do a follow-up stand alone article about this fraud. After our contact went to her supervisor, It was decided to just edit the original article with a correction.
The only issue with that, is the article has already been read by those that will read it. Editing it in place doesn't do much good becuase most don't go back and read an article weeks after they've already read it the first time. In most people's eyes, they read an article with him being a Green Beret.
Is seems Art has a history of deceit. We usually don't included other criminal history unless it shows some type of deceit or deception. We believe this reinforces the fact he has a history of lying.
Art Brownstein Will now be added to Guardians of the Green Beret Hall of Zeroes.