Brian Williams, the NBC Nightly News anchor — at least for the time being — has come in for a lot of criticism lately for claiming, falsely,that he was aboard a U.S. military helicopter in 2003 that was hit by small-arms fire and forced down in the desert during the Iraq war.
He has apologized for his faulty recollection and explained that it is a product of “the fog of memory.”
Lord knows, I understand. For example, I don’t remember getting old but, well, here I am.
But I do remember working with Brian in Washington, D.C., when we were both reporters for The New York Times. I fondly recall the occasions when we’d get our families together for cookouts in the Virginia countryside and thrill our children with stories of our days in professional baseball, when he was a fireballing pitcher for the Toledo Mud Hens and I played shortstop. We’d share a bottle of absinthe while sitting in front of a crackling campfire and …
… My wife has just pointed out a few factual errors in my reminiscence that she said I should correct in the interest of journalistic integrity. They are minor but as Brian, a trusted and therefore very well-compensated anchor, would no doubt say if he could speak the truth instead of twisting it like a corkscrew: You can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, or even most of the time, and lying about wartime exploits will land you in a world of, let’s call it “hurt,” especially if you’re a civilian.
So, let me set my own record straight: It wasn’t Brian Williams I worked with, it was a guy named Tom Baker; it wasn’t Washington, D.C., it was New York City; I wasn’t a reporter for The New York Times, I was an editor at The Wall Street Journal; I didn’t have a family then, just a wife; it wasn’t cookouts in Virginia, it was burning trash dumpsters in Hoboken; I did not play for the Toledo Mud Hens, not even right field; and I never share my absinthe.
These are innocent misstatements; I must have “conflated” several recollections that were blurred in my mind by “the fog of life.”
Brian’s memory was mashed up over a 12-year period and I think it is understandable that he believed he was in a helicopter that was nearly blown out of the Iraqi sky by a bunch of, probably, Republican Guards who had a real bias against the liberal, East Coast media. In another 12 years I’m sure Brian will recall, in detail, pulling Saddam Hussein out of his spider hole and single-handedly dragging him to prison.
War, like memory, is a tricky thing. Action is often fast and furious. I know. I spent nearly a year in Vietnam. But here’s where Brian Williams and I differ: I remember every minute of it.•
Bill Federman is a Southampton resident and former U.S. Marine who works as an editor and columnist for the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union. Contact him at bfederman@timesunion.com.
