Joseph Galloway (November 13, 1941 – August 18, 2021)
August 27, 2021 2:36 PM Subscribe
Mr. Galloway, a 24-year-old reporter for United Press International, went on to witness and participate in the first major battle of the Vietnam War, in which an outmanned American battalion fought off three North Vietnamese army regiments while taking heavy casualties. He carried an M16 rifle alongside his notebook and cameras, and in the heat of battle, he charged into the fray to pull an Army private out of the flames of a napalm blast. [Washington Post]
He was the only civilian awarded a medal of valor by the Army for combat action in the Vietnam War. [NY Times]
With Lt. Gen Harold G. Moore, he wrote an account of the battle, We Were Soldiers Once… and Young, which was adapted into the 2002 movie We Were Soldiers.
Remembering Vietnam War Correspondent Joe Galloway [NPR]
Journalist Joe Galloway, chronicler of Vietnam War, dies: [AP]
He was the only civilian awarded a medal of valor by the Army for combat action in the Vietnam War. [NY Times]
With Lt. Gen Harold G. Moore, he wrote an account of the battle, We Were Soldiers Once… and Young, which was adapted into the 2002 movie We Were Soldiers.
Remembering Vietnam War Correspondent Joe Galloway [NPR]
Journalist Joe Galloway, chronicler of Vietnam War, dies: [AP]
In 2002, Knight Ridder asked Galloway to return to reporting after a stint as an adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell to bolster its Washington bureau’s coverage of the Bush administration’s case for ousting Saddam Hussein.
Galloway did that by contributing, often anonymously, to his colleagues’ stories and by writing a column that often was critical of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who were bent on invading Iraq.
John Walcott, Galloway’s longtime editor and friend, recounted how an exasperated Rumsfeld finally asked Joe to meet with him alone in his office. When Joe arrived, he was greeted by Rumsfeld — and a group of other high-ranking Pentagon officials.
“Good,” Galloway reported when he returned to the Knight Ridder office. “I had ’em surrounded.”
According to Walcott, Galloway then described how after Rumsfeld accused him of relying on retired officers and officials, he had told the group that most of his sources were on active duty, and that some of them “might even be in this room.”
Asked by his colleagues if that was true, Galloway replied, “No, but it was fun watching ’em sweat like whores in church.”
I heard the Fresh Air segment earlier today. I’m not sure what to make of his entirely unapologetic explanation of his machine gunnery. I mean, it sounded like he might be dead if he had refused. It was combat. But it feels off.
posted by Caxton1476 at 3:54 PM on August 27, 2021
posted by Caxton1476 at 3:54 PM on August 27, 2021
His writing struck me as vivid and direct. I didn't read him for questioning or skepticism about the events he was covering.
posted by wenestvedt at 4:04 PM on August 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by wenestvedt at 4:04 PM on August 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
.
We Were Soldiers Once and Young is one of the best military history books I ever read and one of the few I recommend. It captures both the incredible individual bravery and organizational stupidity that matches the military I experienced.
posted by procrastination at 4:40 PM on August 27, 2021 [9 favorites]
We Were Soldiers Once and Young is one of the best military history books I ever read and one of the few I recommend. It captures both the incredible individual bravery and organizational stupidity that matches the military I experienced.
posted by procrastination at 4:40 PM on August 27, 2021 [9 favorites]
.
posted by doctornemo at 7:04 PM on August 27, 2021
posted by doctornemo at 7:04 PM on August 27, 2021
.
posted by JoeXIII007 at 9:23 PM on August 27, 2021
posted by JoeXIII007 at 9:23 PM on August 27, 2021
He was dedicated to soldiers and telling their stories honestly. I was Facebook friends with him. He never pulled his punches and wound up in Facebook jail a couple of times, I believe for his comments about false patriots and other dishonest characters.
posted by etaoin at 10:38 PM on August 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by etaoin at 10:38 PM on August 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
“You mean to tell me no matter what I do I can’t win in Vietnam?” McNamara nodded yes.
https://www.historynet.com/ia-drang-where-battlefield-losses-convinced-ho-giap-and-mcnamara-the-u-s-could-never-win.htm
One thing about the US Division-scale intervention in Vietnam stands out to me, the symmetry of US death toll:
1965 -- 1,928
1966 -- 6,350
1967 -- 11,363
1968 -- 16,899
1969 -- 11,780
1970 -- 6,173
1971 -- 2,414
'68 was so unsustainable for a war of choice
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 11:17 PM on August 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
https://www.historynet.com/ia-drang-where-battlefield-losses-convinced-ho-giap-and-mcnamara-the-u-s-could-never-win.htm
One thing about the US Division-scale intervention in Vietnam stands out to me, the symmetry of US death toll:
1965 -- 1,928
1966 -- 6,350
1967 -- 11,363
1968 -- 16,899
1969 -- 11,780
1970 -- 6,173
1971 -- 2,414
'68 was so unsustainable for a war of choice
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 11:17 PM on August 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
R.I.P. Joe.
I'm guessing he'd cringed many times at the drooling inferences of many of his readers, painful narratives harvested for use as fodder for delightfully fictional narratives. Indeed, we were soldiers once and young. Please--let me consult my store of superlatives.
Opords 5 through 17, May through June 1965: assaults in D-zone, where no one but the NLF has ever ventured. We discover what a Main-Force VC unit is--highly trained, well-armed, aching to kill Americans. When we gave them that chance, MF D-500 left about 400 or so of their men dead on the ground. They learned about artillery. When we pinned them to the lines of fighting holes and bunkers, artillery came zooming in to illustrate the true meaning of cannon fodder. Those wanting to live assaulted us in order to get in front of the impact areas. Hand-to-hand fighting ensued, and we drove them back to the bunkers.
I guess you could say that's where we pinned them down, or I guess you could say they held the line against our assaults, and when we overran their bunkers, it turned that they had yet another line of bunkers, so we pinned them there and called for arty again. Either way, when they heard that sound--like an oncoming freight train, like the sky ripping apart--they assaulted because they would surely die if they didn't. When the barrage stopped, those who still lived retreated back to the bunkers.
We did this (by we, I mean us and them) until they ran out of any significant amount of men. A few platoons tried to escape by swimming across the Dong Nai, but our helicopters put an end to that experiment.
Some survived. That's how the commanders of the PAVN unit that attacked Moore's battalion during the last month in November came to be aware of the "Belt Buckle" tactic. From those encounters with the 173'd, they also developed charts showing how to shoot down helicopters with small arms fire. I learned stuff, too: their machine gunners crawled through the brush to create firing lanes by plucking leaves and twigs off the bottom parts of the bush. A man pushing his way through brush couldn't see more than a couple of feet, but anybody lying down in just the right place could see a few hundred feet, all the way to the firing slit on the bunker. Neat, eh?
Then there was The Hump, the first week in January, 65, back in good old War Zone D. I don't remember the unit designation for that Main Force regiment. They ambushed 1st Batt and pinned them down. Their main objective was to ambush the relief force. When that happened, they tried to overrun 1st batt. They left about 500 mean on that battlefield and learned that attacking a well-formed perimeter amounted to suicide.
I clearly remember being between patrols after The Hump, hearing about 1st Cav's adventures up north. To our ears, Moore made the mistakes every new unit to Vietnam made: got hit before he could establish a perimeter, his guys were strung out, isolated, then wiped out. I remember giving them credit for getting their shit together. Eventually.
We arrived in-country in May, 65. We had trained for exactly this shit for two years because we were the strike force for jungle fighting in SE Asia. We tweaked our tactics on Opord 5-65. We watched American units--1st Infantry, 25th Infantry, 1st Air Cavalry, 101st Airborne--all make adjustments (read: make the same mistakes over and over) to what they thought jungle fighting was all about. Some of those "Lessons Learned" sessions were bought with many American lives.
History is a flawed time machine. Narratives tell attenuated tales that tickle the writer's fancy. Narratives sweep from months to years to decades without ever showing what the second-by-second reality was for those who actually made shit happen.
I accept Galloway as a sincere, courageous journalist. I hope his spirit resides in peace. I saw the movie, couldn't read the book. I watch Mel Gibson's boot be the first one to hit the ground and the last one to step on the skid of the helicopter. As for the fictional narrative that was presented between those scenes, well, sure. Everyone likes a good war movie, especially one that sticks to the formulas that movie makers love and cherish. (Take that, you commie bastard!)
It's the comparatively small things that leave me feeling unsettled. I know when I have an emotional overreaction. Today it's the headlines that repeat the fiction "..first major battle between...."
I remember Opords 5 to 17, in May and June, and the Hump in November, and every second between, plus the La Nga River Valley, the Ho Bo woods, Courtenay Plantation, and snapshot flashes of places I don't remember ever having been, and things I don't really remember ever happening. People who weren't even born then pass blithe judgments on events opined by people who heard about them from someone who told them stories they got from some guy who had an uncle in "The Nam."
It don't mean nothing. Drive on.
posted by mule98J at 9:41 AM on August 28, 2021 [20 favorites]
I'm guessing he'd cringed many times at the drooling inferences of many of his readers, painful narratives harvested for use as fodder for delightfully fictional narratives. Indeed, we were soldiers once and young. Please--let me consult my store of superlatives.
Opords 5 through 17, May through June 1965: assaults in D-zone, where no one but the NLF has ever ventured. We discover what a Main-Force VC unit is--highly trained, well-armed, aching to kill Americans. When we gave them that chance, MF D-500 left about 400 or so of their men dead on the ground. They learned about artillery. When we pinned them to the lines of fighting holes and bunkers, artillery came zooming in to illustrate the true meaning of cannon fodder. Those wanting to live assaulted us in order to get in front of the impact areas. Hand-to-hand fighting ensued, and we drove them back to the bunkers.
I guess you could say that's where we pinned them down, or I guess you could say they held the line against our assaults, and when we overran their bunkers, it turned that they had yet another line of bunkers, so we pinned them there and called for arty again. Either way, when they heard that sound--like an oncoming freight train, like the sky ripping apart--they assaulted because they would surely die if they didn't. When the barrage stopped, those who still lived retreated back to the bunkers.
We did this (by we, I mean us and them) until they ran out of any significant amount of men. A few platoons tried to escape by swimming across the Dong Nai, but our helicopters put an end to that experiment.
Some survived. That's how the commanders of the PAVN unit that attacked Moore's battalion during the last month in November came to be aware of the "Belt Buckle" tactic. From those encounters with the 173'd, they also developed charts showing how to shoot down helicopters with small arms fire. I learned stuff, too: their machine gunners crawled through the brush to create firing lanes by plucking leaves and twigs off the bottom parts of the bush. A man pushing his way through brush couldn't see more than a couple of feet, but anybody lying down in just the right place could see a few hundred feet, all the way to the firing slit on the bunker. Neat, eh?
Then there was The Hump, the first week in January, 65, back in good old War Zone D. I don't remember the unit designation for that Main Force regiment. They ambushed 1st Batt and pinned them down. Their main objective was to ambush the relief force. When that happened, they tried to overrun 1st batt. They left about 500 mean on that battlefield and learned that attacking a well-formed perimeter amounted to suicide.
I clearly remember being between patrols after The Hump, hearing about 1st Cav's adventures up north. To our ears, Moore made the mistakes every new unit to Vietnam made: got hit before he could establish a perimeter, his guys were strung out, isolated, then wiped out. I remember giving them credit for getting their shit together. Eventually.
We arrived in-country in May, 65. We had trained for exactly this shit for two years because we were the strike force for jungle fighting in SE Asia. We tweaked our tactics on Opord 5-65. We watched American units--1st Infantry, 25th Infantry, 1st Air Cavalry, 101st Airborne--all make adjustments (read: make the same mistakes over and over) to what they thought jungle fighting was all about. Some of those "Lessons Learned" sessions were bought with many American lives.
History is a flawed time machine. Narratives tell attenuated tales that tickle the writer's fancy. Narratives sweep from months to years to decades without ever showing what the second-by-second reality was for those who actually made shit happen.
I accept Galloway as a sincere, courageous journalist. I hope his spirit resides in peace. I saw the movie, couldn't read the book. I watch Mel Gibson's boot be the first one to hit the ground and the last one to step on the skid of the helicopter. As for the fictional narrative that was presented between those scenes, well, sure. Everyone likes a good war movie, especially one that sticks to the formulas that movie makers love and cherish. (Take that, you commie bastard!)
It's the comparatively small things that leave me feeling unsettled. I know when I have an emotional overreaction. Today it's the headlines that repeat the fiction "..first major battle between...."
I remember Opords 5 to 17, in May and June, and the Hump in November, and every second between, plus the La Nga River Valley, the Ho Bo woods, Courtenay Plantation, and snapshot flashes of places I don't remember ever having been, and things I don't really remember ever happening. People who weren't even born then pass blithe judgments on events opined by people who heard about them from someone who told them stories they got from some guy who had an uncle in "The Nam."
It don't mean nothing. Drive on.
posted by mule98J at 9:41 AM on August 28, 2021 [20 favorites]
One thing about the US Division-scale intervention in Vietnam stands out to me, the symmetry of US death toll
I'm rewatching Ken Burns' The Vietnam War. LBJ basically knew the war was unwinnable in 1964, before we ever sent combat troops. If the US hadn't sent troops, South Vietnam would probably have fallen by 1966.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:43 AM on August 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm rewatching Ken Burns' The Vietnam War. LBJ basically knew the war was unwinnable in 1964, before we ever sent combat troops. If the US hadn't sent troops, South Vietnam would probably have fallen by 1966.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:43 AM on August 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
I was born in 1963 and so Vietnam was not something I was directly affected by, but I remember seeing it on the news every night and had friends whose parents or older siblings were affected directly by the war, either by serving there or trying to avoid serving there. I have been fascinated by the “war” (that was never declared by congress as it should have been) ever since, along with Watergate. Based on this thread I decided to read We Were Soldiers Once… and was pleased to discover it is available for free via Amazon Prime. (Which I know has problems, but this is something good about it).
posted by TedW at 12:14 PM on August 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by TedW at 12:14 PM on August 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
If, 46 years ago, in 1975, when the war ended, you started to made a “click” sound every 90 minutes…… 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year…you did so until about today. You’d have made enough clicks to count the North Vietnamese and Cambodian civilians killed by American bombing campaigns.
posted by lalochezia at 3:46 PM on August 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by lalochezia at 3:46 PM on August 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
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