Watch NBC’s Brian Williams retract Iraq helicopter story

Williams made the claim last Friday while reporting a tribute at a New York Rangers hockey game for a retired soldier who provided ground security during the incident.

He said he and his news crew were protected by a mechanized platoon from the US Army 3rd Infantry after their Chinook helicopter was crippled by enemy fire.

See more: the best Brian Williams Iraq misremembering memes

The announcement prompted crew members on the 159th Aviation Regiment’s Chinook that was hit by two rockets and small arms fire to tell the Stars and Stripes military newspaper that the journalist had arrived on a different helicopter an hour later.

I spent much of the weekend thinking I’d gone crazy. I feel terrible about making this mistake. Brian Williams

NBC News had been repeating the false account of the incident for years, the military publication said.

In a statement responding to the soldiers, Williams said: “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.”

He said repeatedly watching a video of himself inspecting the impact damage, plus “the fog of memory over 12 years,” made him conflate and misremember events, some of which took place in a thick “orange crush” sandstorm.

“Nobody’s trying to steal anyone’s valor,” he wrote. “Quite the contrary: I was and remain a civilian journalist covering the stories of those who volunteered for duty.”