President Joe Biden, 80, again falsely claimed his son Beau Biden was killed while serving in Iraq while visiting US troops stationed in Japan on Monday.
“My son was a Major in the US Army. We lost it in Iraq,’ Biden told troops in Iwakuni on Thursday.
Beau Biden, who served as Delaware’s attorney general and in the Delaware Army National Guard during the Iraq War, died at age 46 in 2015 of brain cancer at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
His death may have been linked to fire pits he encountered while serving in Iraq, although Beau did not die fighting in the Middle East.
The president was speaking during a visit with troops en route to the G7 summit in Hiroshima, according to the New York Post.
It was at least the third time the oldest living president in the United States – preparing to run for a second term in 2024 – has spoken misleadingly about the death of his eldest son in public.
President Joe Biden, 80, repeated the false anecdote that his son Beau Biden was killed while serving in Iraq once again during a visit with US troops stationed in Japan on Monday
In October 2022, Biden said Beau died in Iraq while speaking at Camp Hale in Colorado.
“Just imagine – I mean it sincerely – I say this as the father of a man who won the Bronze Star, the Distinguished Service Medal, and lost his life in Iraq. Imagine the courage, the audacity and the real sacrifice — the real sacrifice they all made,’ Biden said then.
He also said Beau died in Iraq during a speech in Florida in November, just after mistaking the war in Ukraine for the war in Iraq.
“Inflation is a global problem right now,” the president said. “There is a war in Iraq and the impact on oil and what Russia is doing. Excuse me, the war in Ukraine.
“I’m thinking of Iraq, because that’s where my son died — because he died,” Biden went on to explain.
The president has long linked his service and the military’s use of fire pits to Beau’s brain cancer diagnosis.
“In my opinion, I can’t prove it yet, he came back with stage 4 glioblastoma. Eighteen months he lived, knowing he was going to die,’ Biden said in 2019.
The younger Biden deployed to Iraq in 2009 and earned a Bronze Star medal for his service in the military.
“My son was a Major in the US Army. We lost it in Iraq,’ Biden told troops in Iwakuni on Thursday.
The younger Biden deployed to Iraq in 2009 and won a Bronze Star medal for his service there. President Biden said in 2019 he believed his son had contracted cancer due to ‘exposure to combustion pits’ while deployed
The younger Biden deployed to Iraq in 2009 and won a Bronze Star medal for his service there.
President Biden has claimed for the first time that his late son Beau ‘lost his life in Iraq’, apparently convinced the former military reservist died of brain cancer he contracted after being exposed to combustion fireplaces, in October 2022.
President Joe Biden has again said his son Beau Biden died in Iraq, as he caught himself calling the war in Ukraine the war in Iraq, while delivering a speech in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in November 2022.
Biden has campaigned for legislation to support legislation to improve health care for veterans exposed to toxic burning stoves, and frequently mentions his late son in speeches.
The president has also come under fire for invoking his son Beau in military speeches in the past.
William McGurn, George W. Bush’s speechwriter, wrote for The Wall Street Journal in 2019 that Biden should stop invoking Beau to deflect criticism from his handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
‘M. Biden is not a Gold Star dad and should stop playing one on TV,’ he wrote.
