Brian Williams admits to lying for years about being under fire in Iraq.
After lying for nearly a decade, Brian Williams should win an Academy Award for best actor. Since visiting Iraq in 2003, NBC news anchor, Brian Williams, said he was aboard a Chinook helicopter when it was hit and grounded by enemy fire over Baghdad. But, after repeating the claim last week, Brian Williams was forced to admit that it was all a lie.
You can even watch Brian Williams tell the story to David Letterman in a 2010 interview:
http://youtu.be/xS3NAwZ4hGk
Stars & Stripes, the military-focused newspaper interviewed the CH-47 Chinnook crew members, and revealed that Brian Williams was never near the accident.
Williams himself repeated the claim Friday during NBC’s coverage of a public tribute at a New York Rangers hockey game for a retired soldier that had provided ground security for the grounded helicopters. In an interview with Stars and Stripes, he said he had misremembered the events and was sorry.
The admission came after crew members on the 159th Aviation Regiment’s Chinook that was hit by two rockets and small arms fire told Stars and Stripes that the NBC anchor was nowhere near that aircraft or two other Chinooks flying in the formation that took fire. Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter after the other three had made an emergency landing, the crew members said.
“I would not have chosen to make this mistake,” Williams said. “I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.”
Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Miller, a flight engineer on the helicopter that carried Williams in Iraq that day, says they never came under enemy fire. Nevertheless, Brian Williams repeated the claim that he survived the attack at last Friday’s hockey game:
“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.”
After Stars and Stripes revealed the true story, Brian Williams wrote an apology:
To Joseph, Lance, Jonathan, Pate, Michael and all those who have posted: You are absolutely right and I was wrong.
In fact, I spent much of the weekend thinking I’d gone crazy. I feel terrible about making this mistake, especially since I found my OWN WRITING about the incident from back in ’08, and I was indeed on the Chinook behind the bird that took the RPG in the tail housing just above the ramp.
Because I have no desire to fictionalize my experience (we all saw it happened the first time) and no need to dramatize events as they actually happened, I think the constant viewing of the video showing us inspecting the impact area — and the fog of memory over 12 years — made me conflate the two, and I apologize.
I certainly remember the armored mech platoon, meeting Capt. Eric Nye and of course Tim Terpak. Shortly after they arrived, so did the Orange Crush sandstorm, making virtually all outdoor functions impossible. I honestly don’t remember which of the three choppers Gen. Downing and I slept in, but we spent two nights on the stowable web bench seats in one of the three birds.
Later in the invasion when Gen. Downing and I reached Baghdad, I remember searching the parade grounds for Tim’s Bradley to no avail. My attempt to pay tribute to CSM Terpak was to honor his 23+ years in service to our nation, and it had been 12 years since I saw him.
The ultimate irony is: In writing up the synopsis of the 2 nights and 3 days I spent with him in the desert, I managed to switch aircraft. Nobody’s trying to steal anyone’s valor. Quite the contrary: I was and remain a civilian journalist covering the stories of those who volunteered for duty. This was simply an attempt to thank Tim, our military and Veterans everywhere — those who have served while I did not.
Brian Williams can easily save his career by rapping another Snoop Dogg song. Everybody loves hip-hop news anchors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jidziKYG9jk
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H/T: Gawker
