Green Beret faker wore black beret

Green Beret faker wore black beret
Army Times
By Joe Gould
Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Sep 12, 2010

To Sgt. Louis Brandwein, something about the “ridiculously obese” man in ACUs at the gun show looked off.

He wore a nonregulation MOLLE belt, Special Forces qualification tabs on both shoulders and a rare Combat Infantryman Badge with two stars.

“Everything was just wrong. As soon as I looked at him, I was like, ‘What the hell,’ ” said Brandwein, a 25-year-old infantryman at Fort Richardson, Alaska.

The man Brandwein saw posing as a Green Beret in Anchorage, and confronted, was con man and serial faker William James Clark. Clark did federal prison time for posing as an Army captain at a 2002 bridge disaster.

Weeks later, Clark was arrested on Aug. 27 at a hotel in Deadhorse, about 500 miles north of Anchorage. He was charged with carrying a firearm while a convicted felon.

Although the federal Stolen Valor Act was ruled an unconstitutional violation of free-speech rights in July, the issue of military fakers remains provocative. Since Brandwein told the story last month on the gun owners website Georgia Packing, it has received more than 800 replies, many full of anger at Clark.
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