Joseph Lee Galloway (November 13, 1941August 18, 2021) was an American newspaper correspondent and columnist. During the Vietnam War, he often worked alongside the American troops he covered and was awarded a

Bronze Star Medal The Bronze Star Medal (BSM) is a United States Armed Forces decoration awarded to members of the United States Armed Forces for either heroic achievement, heroic service, meritorious achievement, or meritorious service in a combat zone. Wh ...

in 1998 for having carried a badly wounded man to safety while he was under very heavy enemy fire in 1965.We Were Soldiers
BSM Citation From 2013 until his death, he worked as a special consultant for the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

50th anniversary Commemoration project run out of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and has also served as consultant to

Ken Burns Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American filmmaker known for his documentary film, documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle United States, American History of the United States, history and Culture of the ...

' production of a documentary history of the Vietnam War broadcast in the fall of 2017 by

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

. He was also the former Military Affairs consultant for the

Knight-Ridder Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by McClatchy on June 27, 2006, it was the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspaper bran ...

chain of newspapers and was a columnist with

McClatchy Newspapers The McClatchy Company, commonly referred to as simply McClatchy, is an American publishing company incorporated under Delaware's General Corporation Law and based in Sacramento, California. It operates 29 daily newspapers in fourteen states and ...

Early life

Galloway was born in

Bryan, Texas Bryan is a city and the county seat of Brazos County, Texas, United States. It is located in the heart of the Brazos Valley (East and Central Texas). As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 83,980. Bryan borders the city of College ...

, on November 13, 1941. His father, Joseph, fought in the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

; his mother was Marian Dewvall. His family relocated to

Refugio, Texas Refugio ( ) is a town in Refugio County, Texas, Refugio County, of which it is the county seat, in the U.S. state of Texas. The population was 2,890 as of the 2010 United States census, 2010 Census. Refugio is the birthplace of National Baseball H ...

, after his father was employed by

Humble Oil Humble Oil and Refining Co. is a defunct American oil company founded in 1911 in Humble, Texas. In 1919, a 50% interest in Humble was acquired by the Standard Oil of New Jersey which acquired the rest of the company in September 1959. The Humbl ...

upon his return from military service. Galloway initially enrolled in community college in 1959, but dropped out after six weeks to join the Army. His mother convinced him to go into journalism, and he subsequently majored in the subject at Victoria College. His great-grandfather James Isham Galloway lost his right leg at the

Second Battle of Manassas The Second Battle of Bull Run or Battle of Second Manassas was fought August 28–30, 1862, in Prince William County, Virginia, as part of the American Civil War. It was the culmination of the Northern Virginia Campaign waged by Confederate ...

in the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

, and his other great-grandfather James William Reid lost his left leg at the Battle of the Wilderness. They ended up on adjoining farms. After the war, they got together once a year and went to town to buy boots. They would buy one pair and split them up, giggling over how they'd screwed the shopkeeper.

Career

Newspapers

Galloway started his career at ''

The Victoria Advocate ''The Victoria Advocate'' is a daily newspaper independently published in Victoria, Texas. It is the second-oldest paper in Texas and the oldest west of the Colorado River, dating back to May 8, 1846, following the Battle of Palo Alto during the ...

'' in

Victoria, Texas Victoria is a small city in South Texas and county seat of Victoria County, Texas. The population was 65,534 as of the 2020 census. The three counties of the Victoria Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 111,163 as of the 2000 censu ...

, afterwards working for

United Press International United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ...

(UPI) in the

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...

and

Topeka Topeka ( ; Kansa: ; iow, Dópikˀe, script=Latn or ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the seat of Shawnee County. It is along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, in northeast Kansas, in the Central Uni ...

bureaus. Later, he served overseas as bureau chief or regional manager in Tokyo,

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

, New Delhi, Singapore, Moscow, and Los Angeles. He worked as a reporter for UPI during the early part of Vietnam War in 1965. Thirty-three years later, he was decorated with the

Bronze Star The Bronze Star Medal (BSM) is a United States Armed Forces decoration awarded to members of the United States Armed Forces for either heroic achievement, heroic service, meritorious achievement, or meritorious service in a combat zone. Wh ...

for helping to rescue a badly wounded soldier while under enemy fire on November 15, 1965, during the Battle of Ia Drang at

Landing Zone In military terminology a landing zone (LZ) is an area where aircraft can land. In the United States military, a landing zone is the actual point where aircraft, especially helicopters, land (equivalent to the commonwealth landing point.) In ...

X-Ray in Vietnam. Galloway retired as a weekly columnist for McClatchy Newspapers in January 2010, writing, "I have loved being a reporter; loved it when we got it right; understood it when we got it wrong...In the end, it all comes down to the people, both those you cover and those you work for, with or alongside during 50 years."

Literature

Along with Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore, Galloway co-wrote a detailed account of those experiences in the best-selling 1992 book, ''

We Were Soldiers Once… And Young In Modern English, ''we'' is a plural, first-person pronoun. Morphology In Standard Modern English, ''we'' has six distinct shapes for five word forms: * ''we'': the nominative (subjective) form * ''us'' and ': the accusative (objective; ...

''. A sequel was released in 2008: '' We Were Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam'' and Moore and Galloway gave an interview on the book at the

Pritzker Military Library The Pritzker Military Museum & Library (formerly Pritzker Military Library) is a non-profit museum and a research library for the study of military history on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. The institution was founded in 2003, and its spe ...

on September 17, 2008.

In popular culture

In ''

We Were Soldiers ''We Were Soldiers'' is a 2002 war film written and directed by Randall Wallace and starring Mel Gibson. Based on the book '' We Were Soldiers Once… and Young'' (1992) by Lieutenant General (Ret.) Hal Moore and reporter Joseph L. Galloway, i ...

'', a 2002 film based on his 1992 book, Galloway is portrayed by actor

Barry Pepper Barry Robert Pepper (born April 4, 1970) is a Canadian actor. He played Private Daniel Jackson in ''Saving Private Ryan'' (1998), Corrections Officer Dean Stanton in '' The Green Mile'' (1999), Roger Maris in '' 61*'' (2001), Joseph L. Galloway ...

. Actor

Edward Burns Edward Fitzgerald Burns (born January 29, 1968) is an American actor, producer, writer, and director best known for appearing in several films including ''Saving Private Ryan'' (1998), '' 15 Minutes'' (2001), ''Life or Something Like It'' (200 ...

portrayed him in the miniseries '' Vietnam in HD'', and

Tommy Lee Jones Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an American actor and film director. He has received four Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actor for his performance as U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard in the 1993 thriller film '' The ...

played him in the 2017 film ''

Shock and Awe Shock and awe (technically known as rapid dominance) is a military strategy based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy's perception of the battlefield and destroy their will to fight. Though ...

''.

Narration

Galloway narrated ''A Flag Between Two Families'', a documentary film, based on the events of May 9, 1968, in

by the members of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry.

Awards

In 1991, Galloway received a

National Magazine Award The National Magazine Awards, also known as the Ellie Awards, honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design. Or ...

for a ''

U.S. News ''U.S. News & World Report'' (USNWR) is an American media company that publishes news, consumer advice, rankings, and analysis. It was launched in 1948 as the merger of domestic-focused weekly newspaper ''U.S. News'' and international-focused ...

'' cover article on the Ia Drang battles in Vietnam. In 1992, he received the New Media Award of the National VFW for his coverage of the Persian Gulf War for U.S. News. In 1999, Galloway received the Vietnam Veterans of America Excellence in the Arts Award, along with Gen. Hal Moore, for his journalism and for ''We Were Soldiers Once and Young'' at the VVA National Convention in Anaheim, California. In 2002, Galloway received the Robert Denig Award for Exceptional Service of the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Assn. In 2005, he received the Tex McCrary Award of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. On May 1, 1998, Galloway was decorated with the

with

"V" device A "V" device is a metal capital letter "V" with serifs which, when worn on certain decorations awarded by the United States Armed Forces, distinguishes an award for heroism or valor in combat instead of for meritorious service or achievement. ...

. The medal was in recognition of his heroism on November 15, 1965, during the Battle of Ia Drang, the first major battle by U.S. and North Vietnamese troops in the Vietnam War. Galloway was present as a journalist. During the fighting, he risked his own safety to assist wounded soldiers. His actions are depicted in the film ''

'' in which he is portrayed by actor

. He is the only civilian to receive the Bronze Star for combat valor for heroism in the Vietnam War from the U.S. Army.

Personal life

Galloway married his first wife, Theresa Magdalene Null, in September 1966 and they remained married until her death on January 26, 1996, from cancer. Together they had two sons, Joshua and Lee. In 1998, Galloway married Karen Metsker, daughter of Captain Thomas Metsker who was Hal Moore's Intelligence Officer and was killed in action in 1965 at the Battle of Ia Drang in the Vietnam War. After they divorced in 2003, he married Dr. Gracie Liem Lim Suan Tzu, a friend for more than 45 years, on May 13, 2012, in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

. In attendance at the ceremony was former U.S. Senator

Max Cleland Joseph Maxwell Cleland (August 24, 1942 – November 9, 2021) was an American politician from Georgia. A member of the Democratic Party, he was a disabled U.S. Army veteran of the Vietnam War, a recipient of the Silver Star and the Bronze Star fo ...

and 7th Cavalry veterans John Henry Irsfeld and Dennis Deal. The Galloways resided in Concord, North Carolina. Galloway died on the morning of August 18, 2021, at a hospital in

Concord, North Carolina Concord is the county seat and largest city in Cabarrus County, in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 105,186, with an estimated population in 2021 of 107,697. In terms of population, the cit ...

. He was 79, and suffered from a heart attack prior to his death.

References

External links

'The Vietnam War Episode 3' preview, PBS Tuesday
The Vietnam War – The River Styx
Joseph Galloway interviewed on ''Conversations from Penn State''

Interview on ''We Were Soldiers Once... and Young''
at the

Pritzker Military Museum & Library The Pritzker Military Museum & Library (formerly Pritzker Military Library) is a non-profit museum and a research library for the study of military history on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. The institution was founded in 2003, and its spe ...

Joe Galloway discusses ''We Were Soldiers Once... and Young''
at the

Joe Galloway and Hal Moore on ''We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam''
at the

* *
with Joseph Lee Galloway
by Stephen McKiernan, Binghamton University Libraries Center for the Study of the 1960s, November 18, 1996 {{DEFAULTSORT:Galloway, Joseph 1941 births 2021 deaths American male journalists Historians of the Vietnam War American war correspondents of the Vietnam War Battle of Ia Drang People from Refugio, Texas Journalists from Texas 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers 21st-century American historians Historians from Texas 20th-century American male writers