World
The many celebrities who fibbed about war stories
IMAGE: BRAD BARKET/INVISION/ASSOCIATED PRESS
NBC News anchor Brian Williams is catching a lot of heat for misremembering a near-death experience during the Iraq War in 2003. Some pundits are wondering if the career of America's top news anchor is damaged beyond repair.
But he's far from the only American who's embellished a war story, and plenty of them carried on with successful careers. Inflated war stories are generally the preserve of politicians, though that is not the only profession with a few fibbers.
Here are some of the more well-known tales of war stories gone wrong.
Ronald Reagan
While former President Ronald Reagan was sitting in the White House in 1983, he told the Israeli prime minister that he filmed a Nazi death camp during World War II as a photographer in the Army.
But, as an article in The Washington Post pointed out a year later, Reagan spent all his time inside the United States during World War II, so he couldn't have filmed it.
The same year as the debunking article was published, Reagan went on to win one of the most lopsided elections in presidential history.
Hillary Clinton
The likely 2016 Democratic presidential candidate needed to beef up her military credentials when she was running for the White House in 2008. On the campaign trail, Clinton recalled a time as First Lady when she was with a group who had to duck and run from sniper fire at a Tuzla airstrip during the Bosnia war. But when video emerged of her calmly greeting locals at that airstrip, with no sniper fire to be seen, Clinton said she'd misspoken.
Now, of course, Clinton is a looming juggernaut of a presidential candidate and the overwhelming favorite to grab the Democratic nomination in 2016.
Joe Biden
Clinton wasn't the only one to embellish war credentials during the 2008 campaign. Vice President Joe Biden said he'd once been aboard an Army helicopter flying over mountains in Afghanistan and Pakistan when it was forced to land.
Biden implied it was forced down because it was taking fire, when it actually just had to land because of a snowstorm.
Now he's vice president and could be running for president in 2016.
George W. Bush
In 1968, Bush joined the National Guard with a contract to serve for six years. That service came under fire throughout his presidential campaigns and his presidency, with allegations that he didn't fulfill his contract.
Bush defended his record, and though evidence shows he probably skipped out on some of the requirements, what actually happened wasn't so awful.
Bush was suspended from the Texas Air National Guard about four years into his contract after he didn't show up for an annual medical exam. He then transferred to a unit in Alabama, though records show he skipped out on Guard duties in 1972 and 1973. Though this doesn't shed a good light on young Bush, it wasn't a particularly egregious offense, either.
A CBS News report by former anchor Dan Rather ahead of Bush's re-election in 2004 claimed that Bush received special treatment from a commanding officer during his time with the Guard. But the report was shown to be based on faked documents.
Whatever happened to the younger Bush, investigating it brought an end to Rather's career at the network.
Tom Mix
Mix, a once famous though largely forgotten actor, said he had ridden up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt in 1898 during the Spanish American War. But he reportedly didn't see any fighting at all, and wound up deserting the military.
He went on to act in nearly 300 movies in the early 20th century.
Joe McCarthy
McCarthy — the infamous "red scare" senator — claimed he had enlisted in the Marines as a private, embellished the number of missions he flew, and wrote himself a letter of commendation.
He had, in fact, been a captain in the Marines, a commissioned officer because of his level of education. And that letter? He wrote it for himself.
McCarthy later shot to fame when he claimed to have a list of Communists in the State department — a list, it later emerged, that he'd made up.
Wes Cooley
Congressman Wes Cooley was elected in 1994. He invented a story about how he was a special forces soldier but couldn't prove his Korean War military service — claiming that all the records of his secretive mission had been destroyed.
But none of that was true, and Cooley didn't serve another term.
Mark Kirk
Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk had earned plenty of military honors in the Navy, but those credentials were not quite enough for him. Kirk said multiple times that he had been named the Navy's "Intelligence Officer of the Year" when the award was actually given to the unit that he led.
Though this scandal unfolded during his campaign for senator, he won, and took his seat in 2010.
Tom Harkin
In 1979, when Tom Harkin was a Congressman, he claimed to have flown reconnaissance missions over Vietnam as Navy pilot during the Vietnam war. He later conceded that he did not fly those missions.
Despite this and other fibs, Harkin went on to serve for 30 years as a senator from Iowa, starting in 1985.
Richard Blumenthal
Though Blumenthal did serve in the military during the Vietnam war, he did not serve inVietnam. In 2008, Blumenthal said he had done the latter, but went onto become a senator from Connecticut, a position he still holds today.
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