Former Vice President Joe Biden told an apparently false war story to a crowd of hundreds of supporters.
Biden, campaigning to challenge President Trump in 2020, spoke to roughly 400 supporters at a rally in New Hampshire on Friday. During his speech, Biden recited a story from his vice presidency about an older Navy captain who begged Biden not to pin a Silver Star on him.
The story, though touching and based loosely on a real event, never happened, according to the Washington Post.
"In the space of three minutes, Biden got the time period, the location, the heroic act, the type of medal, the military branch and the rank of the recipient wrong, as well as his own role in the ceremony," the Washington Post reports.
Biden has told the story numerous times over years of speeches and events with varying degrees of accuracy. At his latest telling, he followed the story by telling the crowd "this is the God’s truth. My word as a Biden."
According to Biden, he had traveled to Afghanistan’s Kunar province to award the Silver Star to a Navy captain who had repelled down a cliff face to retrieve the body of a fellow soldier who had died. As Biden was pinning the medal onto the captain, the soldier begged him not to.
"He said, 'Sir, I don't want the damn thing!'" Biden said. "'Do not pin it on me, sir! Please, sir. Do not do that! He died. He died!'"
Biden’s tale appears to be largely based off a 2011 awards ceremony in Afghanistan's Wardak province. The then-vice president pinned the Bronze Star on Army Staff Sgt. Chad Workman after Workman had attempted to save a friend from a burning vehicle.
Workman had ripped the door off a vehicle and reached inside to save his burning friend. He ultimately did not get his friend out of the vehicle "because he was melting," Workman said.
Biden described the ceremony in a 2016 interview with National Geographic, and Workman gave a similar account.
"You see the look on his face – he says, 'Sir, I don't want it. I don't want it. He died. He died. I didn't do my job, sir. He died,'" Biden said.
[Also read: Damage control: Biden campaign works overtime to blame media for coverage of his mistakes]
