NBC Anchor and host of NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams has often told a tale of heroism that took place while he was on assignment in Iraq.
The yarn he spun started to sound like one of those stores your grandfather used to tell you as a kid. Chances are, your Grandpa, while no doubt embellishing at times as men are often prone to do, likely did not lie to you about whatever story he was telling.
I don’t know if Brian Williams yet has grandchildren, but if he did and was bouncing them on his knee and telling of the time he was nearly killed in Iraq, he’d have to make sure his pants were made of flame retardant materials. Otherwise, junior might get a little hot from the flames.
Williams claims during a trip to Iraq, the helicopter he was in was forced down after being hit by an RPG:
“The story actually started with a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG,” Williams said on the broadcast. “Our traveling NBC News team was rescued, surrounded and kept alive by an armor mechanized platoon from the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry.”
Williams and his camera crew were actually aboard a Chinook in a formation that was about an hour behind the three helicopters that came under fire, according to crew member interviews.
That Chinook took no fire and landed later beside the damaged helicopter due to an impending sandstorm from the Iraqi desert, according to Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Miller, who was the flight engineer on the aircraft that carried the journalists.
“No, we never came under direct enemy fire to the aircraft,” he said Wednesday.
Well then.
This story would not be so insulting if Williams told it once. However, he has told this story over and over again over the last 12 years and now he claims he “misremembered.”
I am no thrill seeker by any means but I’ve been involved in some situations where pretty serious injury could have been the result and I can remember those events with a pretty good sense of clarity. Brian Williams claimed he was in a helicopter that was hit with an RPG.
Nobody “misremembers” something like that.
Unless of course you’re Hillary Clinton ducking sniper fire or John Kerry lifting himself to heroic heights not seen since the days of Sergeant York.
It’s shameful that Brian Williams would lie that way, especially when we know there have been journalists, such as Michael Kelly, who died covering the war in Iraq.
Sorry Brian, but George Constanza was wrong. It is a lie, even if you believe it.