Former Vice President and presidential hopeful Joe Biden is doubling-down on a “war story” he told to a crowd in New Hampshire last week- despite the fact that the story was almost entirely fabricated.
The story surrounded when Biden reportedly went to Afghanistan to award a Navy captain the Silver Star for rappelling down a 60-foot ravine under fire- all to to retrieve the body of an American comrade.
Despite being awarded the medal, the captain reportedly felt as if he had failed.
“The general wanted me to pin the Silver Star on him,” Biden recounted. “I got up there, and this is the God’s truth, my word as a Biden. He stood at attention. I went to pin it on him. He said, ‘Sir, I don’t want the damn thing. Do not pin it on me, sir. Please, sir, do not do that. He died! He died!'”
The Washington Post would later look into the matter and find that the tale was “a moving but false war story.”
To make matters worse, Biden reportedly told several variations of the story along the campaign trail, and has been found to have made similar mistakes- each time, changing the branch of service and turning the enlisted hero into an officer.
“I don’t know what the problem is, he responded to the Post. “What is it that I said wrong?”
The actual story involved a few real-life heroes, such as then-US Army Specialist Kyle White.
White, who was serving with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Afghanistan, would later be awarded the Medal of Honor in 2014, but former President Obama, not Biden, was the one to present the award.
As far as braving Taliban fire to pull a fellow warfighter to safety, the honor belongs to then-Specialist Miles Foltz, who received a Bronze Star in 2008, though Biden (again) did not present the award, despite being present.
“I was making the point how courageous these people are, how incredible they are, this generation of warriors, these fallen angels we’ve lost,” Biden said of his misremembering issue. “I don’t know what the problem is. What is it that I said wrong?”
According to the Daily Mail, Biden’s mental capacity for the presidency has been called into question, following a lengthy history of gaffes, scandals and misstatements.
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