'No excuse': Veterans Affairs Secretary admits he lied to homeless man about serving in special forces... as White House says they 'take him at his word'

• Robert McDonald, who took over VA last year, says he 'reacted wrongly'
• Secretary told homeless man that he also served in Army Special Forces
• White House says McDonald 'never intended to misrepresent' his service

By Christopher Brennan For Dailymail.com

Published: 00:29 EST, 24 February 2015 | Updated: 01:16 EST, 24 February 2015

Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald has admitted that he lied about serving in the US Army Special Forces.

'Special Forces? What years? I was in special forces,' McDonald said when a homeless man told him he had served among the Army's elite troops.

The late January comments were caught on camera for a CBS piece about the continued large numbers of homeless veterans.

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Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald admitted that he lied when he told a homeless man in Los Angeles that he had served in the Army special forces as well

'I have no excuse' McDonald said when pressed on the matter, according to The Huffington Post.

'I incorrectly stated that I had been in Special Forces. That was inaccurate and I apologize to anyone that was offended by my misstatement,' and official statement from the VA Secretary said Monday.

The secretary did complete training for the Army Rangers, but never served in a battalion. He instead became a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division after his graduation from West Point.

The Special Forces, also called Green Berets, is a highly trained unit of the military's special operations forces.

'I reacted spontaneously and I reacted wrongly, [with] no intent in any way to describe my record any different than it is,' McDonald, who left the Army in 1980 and eventually became CEO of Procter & Gamble.

'I thought about this later I knew this [claim] was wrongs,' he said of his exchange with the unidentified homeless man.

McDonald's interaction with the unidentified man was captured on camera by CBS, who were doing a story

McDonald was appointed by President Barack Obama last year and the White House released a statement saying 'We take him at his word and expect that this will not impact the important work he's doing'

The lie does not look likely to affect McDonald's favor with President Barack Obama.

'Secretary McDonald has apologized for the misstatement and noted that he never intended to misrepresent his military service,' the White House said in a statement.

'We take him at his word and expect that this will not impact the important work he's doing to promote the health and well-being of our nation's veterans.'

McDonald replaced former Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki last year.

The former official resigned amid a scandal over long wait times for soldiers at VA hospitals.

Revelations about McDonald's false service claims follow the suspension of NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams for repeatedly telling a false story about being shot at during the war in Iraq.

The new secretary's appointment followed Eric Shinseke's resignation amid a scandal over waiting times at VA hospitals

He later said that his helicopter was right behind one that was shot at, which was also not true.

A piece in Mother Jones also questioned whether Fox's Bill O'Reilly has been truthful about his reporting of the Falklands War.

Twitter users, who mocked Mr Williams by creating photos of him at the moon landing and other impossible places, voiced their frustration with the news about McDonald.

'Brian Williams remembers going out on a special forces mission with Robert McDonald,' user Nathan Wurtzel said.

Special forces members generally become upset when soldiers who did not serve in one of the four designated special operations forces claims they did.

Retired Army Col. Gary Bloomberg called McDonald's remarks 'a boneheaded statement' but said that service members' angers would not be as strong as in other cases where soldiers wear medals they did not earn.