I have always noticed the table set for one in military restaurants, DFACs and chow halls and silently paid respect in my head. This POW/MIA Table is there to honor the fallen and missing soldiers who cannot be with us today.

Today, while in the base’s chow hall to set up for a show, I noticed the accompanying placard. Its first line caught my eye and drew me in:

It is the soldier, not the reporter who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.

It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.

Then I thought of the recent admission by NBC News anchor Brian Williams that he had lied about his Iraq war experiences. Williams had wrongfully claimed on more than one occasion that while in Iraq, the helicopter in which he was flying was attacked by rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire.

However, after recently repeating his false tale of near-death battle experience, the soldiers actually involved in the incident, and whose helicopter was truly shot at, stepped forward to out Williams on his fraudulent claims.

Williams, in his ensuing apology, said that he mistakenly “conflated” the story of the helicopter which was attacked, and that of his own chopper which arrived safely an hour later.

One time, I drove home from work without incident. That same day on the same stretch of road, a friend of mine suffered a broken nose as an errant truck tire careened through her windshield and smashed her face.

The amount of times I have accidentally “conflated” the stories and told people I was the one smashed in the face by a flying truck tire is precisely zero.

You, Mr. Williams, are a liar.

Williams had the audacity to say that, “nobody is trying to steal anybody’s valor.” But that is exactly what is going on here. It may not be a violation of the Stolen Valor Act, which criminalizes fraudulent claims of receiving military decorations with the intention of receiving benefit by convincing others of receipt of such decorations. But make no mistake, Williams did indeed seek to bolster his news credibility by having the rest of us believe he risks his life to provide that news.

So when I see the POW/MIA Table and am reminded of the sacrifices our men and women make, then see how Brian Williams takes the freedom of the press afforded to him by these same soldiers only to crap all over it… I get angry.

And when I speak with the men and women in uniform, sacrificing everything out here in the Middle East this week, and they express their anger and disappointment in their betrayal by those who they entrusted with telling the American people the truth about their sacrifices… I get angry.

NBC News, Brian Williams may have been your news anchor but now he has become your proverbial anchor. He is an anchor that will drag down your ship unless you cut him loose. Brian Williams tarnishes the legacy of real wartime journalists such as Edward R. Murrow and he insults the sacrifices of brave warriors.

And he is a terrible rapper.