After dropping out of high school, he was drafted into the Vietnam-era Army and worked on and fired quad-mounted anti-aircraft guns at Fort Bliss; after serving two years in the military and acquiring over 100 tattoos, Bernstein started a motorcycle repair shop, where he built a custom 1966 Harley Davidson forming a dragon's wings and head with metal and fiberglass, and later modified the dragon's head so the eyes would light up and its snout would shoot fire; Bernstein claims it was the locals who saw him ride the custom dragon Harley, that gave him the nickname "Dragon Man".
[1][2][3] Since 1982, after moving from Valley Stream, Long Island, NY to Colorado, Bernstein has run a mail-order motorcycle parts business, gun store, gun range, paintball park and military museum, on 260 remote acres he owns called "Dragon Land".
[2][4] Billing himself as the "most armed man in America," Bernstein has weapons and equipment on display from the Civil War to Afghanistan, including M1 Garands, .50-caliber machine guns, over 92 military-grade vehicles, a functional 40 ton T54 Russian tank, six 1000-pound bombs; medieval Japanese swords captured by U.S. troops in World War II and over 1600 mannequins dressed in military uniforms.
[8] Bernstein is a Class III firearms dealer and values his collection of military memorabilia at ten million dollars.
[2][3] On June 14, 2012, Bernstein's wife and business manager, Terry Flanell, was killed in an accident during the filming of a promotional piece for a new Discovery Channel reality show featuring Bernstein and his crew, called "Dragon Land".