Article snippet: GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Thursday defended his faulty description of a tale of military heroism and his interactions with the service members who carried it out. The ‘‘essence’’ of his recollection is correct, the former vice president told a South Carolina newspaper Thursday after a Washington Post story detailed how an emotional anecdote Biden told recently while campaigning in New Hampshire contained inaccuracies. Biden’s telling appeared to conflate multiple events, yielding a single story of Vice President Biden pinning a Silver Star on a U.S. Navy captain in the Konar province of Afghanistan for his efforts trying to save another service member. In his latest telling of a story he’s varied over several years, according to the Post, Biden got most of the details wrong: There’s no military record of that specific ceremony, and Biden’s records as a senator show he traveled to Konar when he was Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman and before he was vice president. Biden and his aides countered that the anecdote’s fundamental point — that as vice president he once formally recognized the valor of a heartbroken solider who didn’t want the recognition because his fellow solider ultimately lost his life — is true. ‘‘The central point is it was absolutely accurate what I said,’’ Biden told The Post and Courier newspaper of Charleston, South Carolina, hours after the Post published its story. ‘‘He refused the meda... Link to the full article to read more