Philly mayoral candidate David Oh once apologized for saying he was a Green Beret. But he now repeats the claims.

When he was running for City Council in 2011, David Oh was criticized for misrepresenting his military service and apologized for inaccurately claiming that he was a member of the Green Berets, the Army’s elite special operations force known for their distinctive headwear.

But if you ask him today, Oh will tell you a different story.

“I did serve in the Special Forces. I did serve in the Green Berets,” Oh said in a recent interview. “The issue is that I was not Special Forces-qualified at the time.”

Oh went on to win three terms in Council after publicly admitting he wasn’t in the Green Berets, seemingly putting the issue behind him. But now that he is the GOP nominee for mayor, Oh is once again pitching his biography to voters, including his military service as a member of the Army National Guard 20th Special Forces Group.

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Part of Oh’s argument is that, although he never completed the qualification course that is required to join the ranks of the Green Berets, he was issued a beret that was green.

“At the time that I served, we were all assigned a green beret, and we were generally called a Green Beret,” Oh said. “I served in a Green Beret unit without being Special Forces-qualified.”

For those who are undoubtedly Green Berets, Oh’s argument doesn’t hold up, said Steve Antson, an investigator with Guardians of the Green Beret, an organization that examines public figures’ claims about being in the elite unit.

Wearing the hat “doesn’t make you a Green Beret. Everybody wore the green beret at some time, even cooks,” Antson said, referring to the Army’s varying sartorial standards over the years.

In response to an Inquirer request, Antson confirmed through military records that Oh enrolled in the initial Special Forces Assessment and Selection course, but was not selected to continue on to the Special Forces Qualification Course, or “Q Course,” the famously long and grueling test that is required to become a Green Beret.

“He wasn’t even close,” Antson said.

As a Republican in deep-blue Philadelphia, Oh faces long odds in the Nov. 7 general election against Democratic nominee Cherelle Parker.

While on Council, he championed the interests of veterans and counts many among his most loyal supporters.

“What people find difficult to understand through all of this is that I have Green Berets and other Special Forces folks supporting me throughout my political career,” he said. “At the end of the day, the simple thing is that I did serve.”

In 1988, Oh resigned from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office to enlist in the Army. He went to the Army Officer Candidate School and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the National Guard, stationed in Maryland.

Oh’s National Guard group is part of the Special Forces, which are trained to engage in nonconventional tactics such as small targeted raids and counterterrorism. But unlike active-duty Special Forces groups, members of Oh’s 20th Group are not required to pass the Q Course.

In 1991, the United States launched Operation Desert Storm, or the first Gulf War, and Oh’s unit was put on active duty.

At that time, Oh was transferred to Fort Liberty, then known as Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, where he took the SFAS and was not selected for the Q Course. He was eligible to retake the SFAS, but did not.

Oh did not see combat, was honorably discharged in 1992, and returned to his law career.

Oh ran for Council unsuccessfully in 2003 and 2007 before winning a seat in the 2011 election.

In his first two runs, Oh wrote on his campaign website, “I am proud to have served my country as an officer in U.S. Army Special Forces (the Green Berets).” In 2011, his website included a quote from a supporter saying, “David Oh served his country in the Green Berets.”

After the Philadelphia Daily News reported in August 2011 that his former commander objected to how Oh characterized his service, Oh initially maintained that he had the right to call himself a Green Beret. But after a deluge of criticism from veterans, he published full-page newspaper ads to apologize.

“I will return any contributions made to my campaign under the misrepresentation that I was ‘Special Forces,’ a ‘Green Beret’ or a ‘Special Forces Officer,’” Oh wrote in the ads. “Though I served in the 20th Special Forces Group, I was none of those things.”

Now, Oh is back to saying he was a Green Beret.

“For clarification, I was not Special Forces-qualified during the time I served in the Green Berets,” he said in the recent interview.

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Oh also curiously misstated the reason that he apologized in 2011, saying that his error was that he failed to correct a speaker who introduced him at an event during that campaign.

“What did I apologize about?” Oh said. “Somebody called me a Green Beret in the eight people introducing me, and I did not refute that.”

Oh declined a request for a follow-up interview.

For Antson, Oh’s story is nothing new. Guardians of the Green Beret has disproven scores of claims from people who falsely said they had served in the Green Berets.

Antson said it’s common for people to falsely claim they were in one of the military’s more selective special operations units, such as the Green Berets, the Navy SEALs, the Marine Corps’ Force Reconnaissance, or Air Force Pararescue, known as PJs for “para-jumpers.”

“They claim to be the more elite forces,” he said. “We never see them exposing people who claim to be cooks and motor pool and clerks, although the Army needs every job there is.”

Antson said it’s also common for those making false claims to be people who attempted to join special operations forces or were exposed to them, perhaps by serving on the same base with such a unit.

“A lot of them tend to be associated somehow with Special Forces,” he said. “They know how to talk the language and they know what the steps are going through the pipeline, so they can answer questions better than others not even associated with it.”

Antson said that, despite Oh’s arguments, there is no dispute over the status of anyone who didn’t complete the training.

“When you graduate the Q Course, that’s when you become a Green Beret,” he said.

The centrality of the qualification process is even written into the lyrics of “Ballad of the Green Berets,” the unit’s anthem: “One hundred men will test today, but only three win the Green Beret.”

Staff writer Chris Brennan contributed to this article.