President Joe Biden has recently told a story about his uncle Frank, but the story was fact checked and found to be FALSE! Biden claims that his uncle Frank received the Purple Heart for his courageous acts during WWII. However, key elements provided by the President are chronologically impossible. According to Biden, Frank Biden received the award during the Battle of the Bulge.
While speaking to veterans in Delaware, President Biden began the astonishing story by saying that he first learned about his uncle’s brave deeds in 2008 after his father told him everything. At the time, Biden’s father said that the uncle was awarded the Purple Heart but never got it. Because the event occurred shortly after Joe Biden was elected vice president, his father believed he could assist his uncle in eventually receiving the award, said NY Post.
The President went on to explain that he managed to get the Purple Heart for his uncle. One time, when his uncle came to his house for a visit, Joe Biden decided to give it to him as a present in front of the family. When Uncle Frank refused to accept the “damn thing,” everyone was surprised. The old guy refused to accept the Purple Heart because he felt guilty for living while others died.
The story sounded inspiring at first, but a fact check proved that it wasn’t true. More than six years before his son was chosen as vice president, Joseph R. Biden Sr. died, while his brother, Frank Biden, died in 1999, as reported by SNOPES.
The Purple Heart is a medal presented to soldiers who were hurt or killed in battle. It is the greatest honor that is automatically bestowed to everyone who satisfies the requirements and can be given more once if the soldier is wounded on several occasions.
Because his father passed away in 2002, several years before Biden was appointed vice president, it is impossible for Biden to have had this talk with his father when he claimed to have done so.
Frank Biden’s Purple Heart award is not mentioned on either his gravestone or obituary. Additionally, no one by that name is listed in a partial registry of known Purple Heart recipients, albeit this database is not comprehensive.
The anecdote about Biden’s uncle resembles one that the then-presidential candidate Joe Biden told in 2019 about a Navy lieutenant who allegedly refused to accept a Silver Star for his bravery in Afghanistan. That story was also emotionally stirring but untrue. Biden jumbled pieces of at least three actual occurrences into one story of bravery, compassion, and sorrow that never happened, according to a Washington Post fact check from the time.
Biden also said other questionable things during his speech to the veterans. He made a claim that he was in and out of Afghanistan and Iraq twice during his time as President. The facts show that he has never been to either country as President and only traveled as close as Bethlehem, Palestine, which is nearly 300 miles from the Iraqi border.