NEW YORK — Saying the mind can indeed play tricks on one’s recollections, NBC host Brian Williams is admitting that he is “pretty sure” he was not wounded at the Battle of Verdun in 1916. Williams and the network have long insisted that Williams’ robotic yet dulcet voice was due to a throat injury he received in France in June of that year after an artillery shell exploded near his position in a trench, leaving the longtime anchor of “NBC Nightly News” with a tracheal rupture that required surgery by an inexperienced field doctor named Étienne. An NBC spokesperson said that when one is reporting live from war zones, it’s quite easy for confusion to set in, adding that while Williams was mostly likely not injured in the 10-month-long battle, there is no doubt that he was in a nearby hospital interviewing injured French soldiers — which explains in part the factual error.