BRIAN WILLIAMS – PUPPY SAVER & CHRISTMAS TREE BANDIT VICTIM?

When did misremember become a real word?

Via The New York Post

Brian Williams also told iffy tales of rescuing puppies from fires

Long before he was caught lying about his chopper being forced down by enemy fire in Iraq, Brian Williams boasted how he bravely rescued a terrified puppy from a house fire.

Or maybe it was two puppies.

The truth-challenged NBC anchor told dueling versions of his supposed heroics as a teenage volunteer firefighter with the Old Village Fire Company in Middletown, NJ.

In October 2011, Williams waxed rhapsodic about how his dad took him to fires.

“I remember one such house fire . . . conducting a search on my hands and knees, when I felt something warm, squishy and furry on the floor of a closet,” Williams said.

“I instinctively tucked it in my coat. When I got outside, I saw two small eyes staring up at me, and I returned the 3-week-old and very scared puppy to its grateful owners,” he said.

But in July 2005, he told a different story, insisting he had saved not one but two pups from certain death.

“All I ever did as a volunteer fireman was once save two puppies,” he said, according to Esquire magazine.

Another tall tale? Brian Williams’ alleged encounter with Christmas bandit

Long before Brian Williams was caught lying about his chopper coming under fire in Iraq, he claimed he’d stared down the barrel of a bandit’s gun as a teenager in sleepy Red Bank, NJ.

In a 2005 interview with Esquire magazine, Williams said a thief drew on him in the 1970s — leaving him “looking up at a thug’s snub-nosed .38 while selling Christmas trees out of the back of a truck.”

He told the tough-to-believe story at least four times, claiming he was trying to help a local church when the thief snatched his money on West Front Street and Riverside Avenue.

“That wasn’t a bad job, until a guy came up and stuck a .38-caliber pistol in my face and made me hand over all the money. Merry Christmas, right? Of course, I suddenly appreciated the other jobs I thought I hated,” he told New Jersey Monthly in 2008.

But longtime Red Bank residents think it’s a tall tale.

“I would highly doubt he’s telling the truth,” said Danny Murphy, who in the ’70s ran Danny’s restaurant , which was a few blocks from the alleged crime scene. “I find it hard to believe anyone was held up in this area in the ’70s. It was very safe.”

Les Carbone, 85, felt much the same way.

“Don’t listen to Brian Williams,” he said. “He’s going to tell you a lot of things. I doubt he was robbed at gunpoint. I was born in Red Bank, there were no crimes like that. Tell Brian Williams to stop lying.”

It was so safe, kids walked around alone at night back then, other residents said.

“It was never dangerous here,” said Yolanda DeMaria, 93. “It was a very peaceful town, a lovely town. It was a small town with a dress shop and a five-and-dime. No one locked their cars.”