“NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams last night had to make the humiliating admission that he was not aboard a helicopter hit by RPG fire during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a false claim that he made and was repeated by the network for years.
Williams — who’d claimed he was in a chopper forced down by a rocket-propelled grenade 12 years ago — repeated the story on Friday’s newscast during a tribute for a retired sergeant major.
“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 Friday’s show. “Our traveling NBC News team was rescued, surrounded and kept alive by an armor-mechanized platoon from the US Army 3rd Infantry.”
He was busted when vet Lance Reynolds commented on the “Nightly News” Facebook page, where the clip was posted, “Sorry, dude, I don’t remember you being on my aircraft. I do remember you walking up about an hour after we had landed to ask me what had happened.”
Amid a vicious ratings battle with ABC’s “World News Tonight,” which has positioned anchor David Muir as an equally strong on-the-scene reporter, Williams, who has a $10 million-a-year deal with NBC, made an embarrassing apology.
He claimed on Facebook that he had confused events: “I spent much of the weekend thinking I’d gone crazy. I feel terrible about making this mistake.” Stars and Stripes, which broke the story, reported that a different Chinook was hit by rockets and “the NBC anchor was nowhere near that aircraft . . . Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter.”
Stars and Stripes quotes people from the scene who recall NBC reporting that Williams was aboard the attacked chopper. Mike O’Keeffe, who was a gunner on the damaged Chinook, said, “I can’t believe he is still telling this false narrative.” Williams admitted on-air Wednesday, “I want to apologize . . . This was a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran.”
Brian Williams’ full statement:
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.