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From: Russell L. Ross lzalbany65
Date: 9/30/2005
Time: 1:48:51 AM
Remote Name: 207.200.116.10
Joe Galloway KNIGHTRIDDERS military consultants FICTION EXPOSED
From Soldiers the Offical U.S. Army Magazine
An Author's Quest Story By Helke Hasenauer about Joe Galloway. page 33
ph 1-703-806-4486 <---- soldiers Magazine
march 2002 vol 57 no3 http://www4.army.mil/soldiers/archive/mar2002/pdfs/mar0226-37.pdf
Joe Galloway stated that Clark DIED soon after the incident.
as he gave that interview, He wrote in March 03. 2002 for LEDGER-ENQUIRER.COM
(Columbus Ga.)newspaper a KNIGHTRIDDER newspaper,
ABOUT CLARK sirvived the Naplam attack and his road to healing. date MARCH 03 2002
1. Corpus Christ Caller Times thur. June 4 1998 By STEPHANIE L. JORDAN Staff Writer Joe Galloway "CLARK DIED"
2. LEDGER-ENQUIRER.COM Posted on >Sun, Mar. 03, 2002< BY Joe Galloway
3. From Soldiers the Offical U.S. Army Magazine
An Author's Quest Story By Helke Hasenauer about Joe Galloway.page 33 note the Irony Soldiers issue is >March 2002< Galloway "Clark DIED".
$. Moore didnt see Joe Galloway save Jimmy!
Harold G. Moore, then the 1st Battalion commander,
didn't learn about Galloway's actions until the two collaborated
on ``We Were Soldiers Once . . . And Young,''
a best-selling book about the history of the battle published in 1992.
Moore, who retired as a three-star general, put Galloway in for the award.
FICTION: Fabarication applies particulary to a false but carefully invented statement or a
series of statements, in which some truth is sometimes interwoven, the whole usually
intended to deceive.
The Greatest Hero
"People everywhere are smitten- With a tale that is written.
Once a hero's deeds are known- They're as good as etched in
stone. Every word, folks take to heart- And think this makes
them very smart. Amazing how the very wise- Never stop to
realize- That what they read may not be true.
Groo Moral: Even when the words are true the may not speak the truth. Groo
Moore didnt see Joe Galloway save Jimmy
Harold G. Moore, then the 1st Battalion commander,
didn't learn about Galloway's actions until the two collaborated
on ``We Were Soldiers Once . . . And Young,''
a best-selling book about the history of the battle published in 1992.
Moore, who retired as a three-star general, put Galloway in for the award.
LEDGER-ENQUIRER.COM
Posted on Sun, March. 03, 2002 Joe Galloway writes how Clark survived the napalm attack
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/special_packages/they_were_soldiers/2765842.htm after I pointed theis out that Clark was alive they took it down
LEDGER-ENQUIRER.COM
Posted on Sun, Mar. 03, 2002 BY Joe Galloway
Specialist 5th Class Paul Clark, demolitions specialist, 8th Engineer BattalionPaul Clark, the son of a coal miner from Boomer, N.C., was a newlywed when he received orders to go to Vietnam with the 1st Cavalry Division in 1965.
His main job in 'Nam would be to clear away trees, brush and anything else that would prove to be an obstacle to the landing of helicopters.
As for combat, Clark, then 24 years old, knew when to fire his rifle and when to keep his head down. Which he did during the first day of fighting at Landing Zone X-Ray.
But on the second day...
"We could hear the plane (an F-100); I could see the canister being released from the wing.
I had a pretty good idea where it would hit.
That's why we started running.
It wasn't supposed to be dropped there."
Clark, an Army veteran of six years at the time, and his pal, PFC Jimmy Nakayama, tried to
outrun the spreading napalm.
They weren't fast enough.
The "friendly fire" killed Nakayama two days shy of his 23rd birthday.
The napalm engulfed Clark, leaving him with severe burns over much of his body.
It took skilled surgeons 10 years to rebuild his face.
His wife didn't even recognize him when she saw him at the burn unit at the San Antonio
hospital.
I had one uncle in the Army and two in the Navy and I don't know why, but I always liked the Army better.
I went to basic at Fort Knox, Ky. After a battery of tests decided what specialty I was suited for. I got into engineering. I spent six months there with the 54th Engineers. After that I went to Germany for five years, all at the same base. Then got orders to Fort Benning, 11th Air Assault.
I'd heard stories about the South. When I first got here, I didn't even go out downtown. I would catch a flight on weekends and go home, to New York, where my family is. Then one weekend, some guys, since I had a car, asked me to carry them downtown. They stayed and stayed and stayed. So I went in to find out what they were doing. That's when I fell in love with Columbus. There's a lot of women. I'm young, single... that made me fall in love with Columbus.
Columbus was out in front when it came to integration in the '60s. It was because of the military post.
'We're the ones who went in first'
In Germany, for instance, we were taught how to blow up bridges, certain bridges should be blown if something happens.
A few of the explosives we dealt with were C-4, Flex X, land mines and, of course, dynamite. The land mines, you have to be real familiar with them.
With the 11th Air Assault, our job was to blow bridges and clear helipads. Sometimes we'd use explosives to clear out the trees; other times, chain saws. It all depended on how much time we had. Our job was to clear.
We're the ones who went in first. We had to be there to clear things out before they bring the infantry in. Our secondary mission is to reorganize as infantry.
At the time, I wasn't supposed to be going to Vietnam because I had been out of the country for five years. I'd been told I'd be shipped to Fort Campbell (Ky.), to the 101st, since I was Airborne. I got married, and found out then I was going to Vietnam anyway.
I got married with the idea I would be going to Kentucky. There was nothing my wife could say.
We went by bus to Hunter Air Force Base (in Savannah) and flew out of there on C-130s with stops in California, Hawaii, Guam, Okinawa and then, Vietnam.
It was blistering hot. Of course, it had been hot here; it may have been worse here than there because of the humidity. After a while, you get used to the heat.
The 8th went to An Khe. We were part of the division (1st Cav). We had people from all the units in the 1st Cav as advance party. To lay out they had their areas picked out. Each unit would come in and all of us would go in and clean it out so they could bring the helicopters in.
My job was clearing, cutting trees, moving dirt and bushes and things, getting them out of the way. It was 30 days before the main body got there.
Most of us had C rations. We liked it better than the regular food.
We weren't allowed to go into the town until the VC were cleared out of there. You never went into town without your weapon.
'Go to pieces or do your job'
One or two Viet Cong regulars were captured when we landed (at LZ X-Ray on Nov. 14). I'm not sure what was said when they were interrogated. But we moved on. Then all hell broke loose. That's the only way to describe it.
We knew it was a "hot" LZ. We were among the first to arrive at the landing zone. If they needed an LZ cleared, then Col. Moore would direct us to do it. We went right along with the rest of them -- we all had weapons, we were just like an infantry platoon. I also had C-4 on me.
The first shots came about 15-20 minutes after we landed. That was the first time I'd ever been shot at.
You've been trained to react when you're fired upon. I think that's the first thing that happens. Then it finally sets in that somebody is trying to kill you. You can go either way -- go to pieces or do your job. I chose to do my job. That will keep you alive.
We followed Colonel Moore's group after landing. We went through bamboo, into the wood line. That's when we got hit. We knew we'd run into some pretty good fighting. But nobody knew right then that we'd run into one of the largest, best-equipped North Vietnamese units there.
I think our guys were ready for a fight. We were more alert.
People were getting killed and wounded. Col. Moore's group was using a large ant hill as cover. There was a dry stream bed that a lot of us used as cover. It ran a long way.
If we could get to them, we would try to pull the wounded back into this dry stream bed where they wouldn't get any further harm. This went on and on and on... air strikes, artillery barrages...
'We could hear the plane'
The next morning is when I got hit. With napalm.
Napalm burns, liquid fire. As long as it can get oxygen, it burns. I was familiar with napalm. Only the U.S. had napalm. The enemy didn't even have airplanes.
It's designed to clear out areas and kill people.
I was in the dry stream bed that morning. We had just pulled some soldiers back who had been wounded. We were on our way back when it hit us.
We could hear the plane... I could see the canister being released from the wing. I knew what it was. It was silver. I had a pretty good idea where it would hit. That's why we started running, trying to get away from it. It took just a matter of seconds to explode. It wasn't supposed to be dropped there.
A lot of us began running in different directions. Nakayama and I were running together. It gets on your body and just sticks. It's like a jelly, hot.
I knew what had happened right away. One of the other soldiers took his fatigue jacket off and put it over me to smother the fire. You had to cut the oxygen off to stop the burning.
The fire really got me from the waist up, but the main portion got me in the head and shoulders.
Arms? Just spots. My hands were completely burned. My head, shoulders, that's what took the brunt of the attack.
My whole scalp. My eyes, nose, mouths, ears... have all been rebuilt. It was all burned off.
'Your mind takes over'
I think once something this bad happens to you, your mind takes over. The mind is a wonder mechanism. It blocks out part of the pain. So a lot of things you don't know that you did.
My eyelids were rebuilt. My whole face was rebuilt.
But I did not lose my sight. That was a miracle.
I was pretty alert during that time. One of the people told me not to go to sleep, not to close my eyes. This stayed with me until I got to Brook (Army Medical Center in San Antonio). The doctor there said if I'd ever gone to sleep I would never have woke up.
I didn't see my face until... they don't have mirrors in the ward... I got to where I could walk around and I went down to another ward, went into the bathroom and I saw my face then. I was shocked.
I don't know if I cried.
I was somewhat bitter at first. But that wore off after a while. My mother and all my family... as long as it didn't bother them, I didn't care about it.
I think I got the best of care after I got back to the U.S. I was in a hospital eight months. I was a newlywed. My wife was able to visit with me almost immediately. My mother and her traveled together. My wife was 24 at the time. We're still married.
Some of the guys, after I was out of the hospital, from the engineers I used to run with at Fort Benning, came to visit. About four of them came through and spent about 10 days with me.
'I know he felt bad'
Plastic surgery went on for about 10 years, off and on. Rebuilding my face took the longest. They'd do a little bit and have to wait until it took hold, or start back growing or get life in it. My ears, this was cut, it started down here on my neck. They made a tube. To get blood circulating in it, they would move it and walk it up beside my head, then attach my ear. It took a while. My ears probably took the longest.
Every once in a while I look at some of the old pictures of myself and say "they didn't do a bad job at all." I never saw any of the pictures of myself before they put me in the hospital.
I probably would like to see exactly what they looked like.
It doesn't really bother me that I was the victim of "friendly fire."
They had a big investigation here at Fort Benning after I started work. Some Air Force people here. They asked me if I thought it was deliberate. I think they were going to hang the officer who dropped it. They knew who it was.
"No, I don't think it was deliberate. Maybe he saw something on the ground we didn't see."
I think it was an accident. They didn't prosecute the pilot. The general who headed the investigation told me I probably saved one of his better officers. I never met the pilot, never talked to him. I know he felt bad.
'In my own time, I'll tell him'
I have one son, 26 years old. He works in Atlanta, in telecommunications.
He never wanted to be in the Army. I asked him when he was very small if he wanted to go into the service.
He said: "No, daddy." I never approached him about it again.
He never asked me about my time in Vietnam, or the accident.
In my own time, I'll tell him about it.
My wife knew it was my job. I was doing what I was paid to do.
When I went back on active duty, I taught in the Infantry School. Taught demolition, how to stop tanks with different things when you don't have any weapons.
I hadn't talked to anyone about Vietnam in 30-something years until I talked to you the last time. I had a drinking problem. I thought it would help. But after you wake up, you have the same problem. The problem never goes away. But finally I went to talk to a psychiatrist. And I prayed. And I haven't had a drink for over a year. The problem had lasted a long time.
I drank to forget the nightmares. That day and other things I saw during my tour.
I'm 61, and I feel a lot better about myself.
hey were the best you had, America, and you turned your back on them.
Copyright Joe Galloway
http://www.caller2.com/newsarch/news11571.html
FALSE>>> Joe Galloway"'Clark died and, two days later".
Harold G. Moore, then the 1st Battalion commander,
didn't learn about Galloway's actions until the two collaborated
on ``We Were Soldiers Once . . . And Young,''
a best-selling book about the history of the battle published in 1992.
Moore, who retired as a three-star general, put Galloway in for the award.
Moore's big LIE
``There was grazing machine-gun fire going over our heads and he got up in that grazing fire
and ran to that soldier to save him,'' Moore said.
Galloway, crouching down to avoid enemy fire, saw PFC Jimmy Nakayama and Spc.5
James Clark get caught by the flames.
With the help of Sgt. George Nye, Galloway grabbed Nakayama's feet and carried him to
safety.
>Clark died
Thursday, Jun. 4, 1998
Refugio native awarded Bronze Star
Former UPI reporter tried to save a wounded soldier during the Vietnam War
By STEPHANIE L. JORDAN Staff Writer
BAYSIDE -- For Refugio native Joe Galloway, reporting the Vietnam War meant getting away from press briefings, safe base camps and clean sheets. He saw the war as the grunts saw it, down in the dirt with the heat, death, blood, fear and valor. And on Nov. 15, 1965, during the first large-scale battle between American troops and the North Vietnamese Army, Galloway stopped being a United Press International reporter and became a hero.
On May 1, 1998, Galloway -- now a senior writer for U.S. News and World Report -- was awarded a Bronze Star with a ``V'' device for valor for his actions during the battle. Galloway, who divides his time between homes in Bayside and Boston, is the first civilian to be given the award from the Army, said Maj. Gen. Joseph K. Kellogg, who presented him with the medal at Fort Bragg, N.C.
``At that time and that place he was a soldier,'' Kellogg said. ``He was a soldier in spirit, he was a soldier in actions and he was a soldier in deeds.''
Galloway was honored for trying to save a wounded soldier during one of the pivotal battles of the Vietnam War, a battle that left 234 Americans dead.
``I know that wasn't my job, but in those days everyone did what they could to survive and help everyone else make it out of there alive,'' Galloway said.
While with troops of the 7th Cavalry's 1st Battalion -- part of the First Cavalry Division -- fighting in the Central Highlands, Galloway was in the battalion command post when an
American fighter mistakenly dropped napalm near the position.
Galloway, crouching down to avoid enemy fire, saw PFC Jimmy Nakayama and Spc.5 James
Clark get caught by the flames.
With the help of Sgt. George Nye, Galloway grabbed Nakayama's feet and carried him to
safety.
----------Joe Galloway
>>> "Clark died <<<and, two days later, so did Nakayama."
-----------------------
``When I grabbed his feet, his boots just fell off, and I remember my hands touching raw bones,'' Galloway said. ``We carried him away and he was screaming. I can still hear those screams.'' Harold G. Moore, then the 1st Battalion commander, didn't learn about Galloway's actions until the two collaborated on ``We Were Soldiers Once . . . And Young,'' a best-selling book about the history of the battle published in 1992. Moore, who retired as a three-star general, put Galloway in for the award. ``There was grazing machine-gun fire going over our heads and he got up in that grazing fire and ran to that soldier to save him,'' Moore said. ``One of my medics got shot, but Joe kept going. When the battle was over . . . I never gave any thought to giving this award to a civilian.'' For the 17-year-old 1958 Refugio High graduate, just getting to the Ia Drang Valley was a battle. Galloway, now 56, said he wasn't a great student in high school and was only interested in reading, writing and history. He attended Victoria Junior College for six weeks, but didn't like it because it was too much like high school. ``I was on my way to join the Army when my mom, God bless her, said `But what about your journalism?' '' Galloway said. ``We just so happened to be driving by the Victoria Advocate's office so I stopped in and asked if I could be a reporter.'' After 18 months at the Advocate, Galloway joined UPI. At age 19, he was named bureau chief of UPI's Topeka, Kan., bureau, the youngest bureau chief in the history of the wire service. ``I guess that's because I was a young man in a hurry,'' Galloway said. During his three years in Topeka, from 1961 to 1964, Galloway began lobbying his bosses to send him to Tokyo, the UPI bureau that covered the growing war in Vietnam. ``I knew this was my generation's war,'' he said. ``Not to have gone would have been much harder to explain than going is.'' He was in Tokyo for six months before going to Vietnam to cover the Marines. From his first days in-country, Galloway worked hard to get to a firsthand view of the war. Military leaders weren't always pleased to see him. But his willingness to show up in the field, to live with the troops, won the respect of many soldiers. One of his early converts was H. Norman Schwarzkopf, then a major, who went on to become a four-star general and command the multinational coalition force that won the Persian Gulf War in 1991. In Vietnam, Galloway hooked up with Schwarzkopf in August 1965 at the Du Co Special Forces camp. Schwarzkopf and his South Vietnamese troops had been under attack for two weeks, and Schwarzkopf had just found out the unit would have to walk out of the area. Galloway showed up and asked to march out with the troops, Schwarzkopf said in a phone interview. ``I was hot, tired and dirty and had just found out that we had to walk out and the last person I wanted to have around was a fancy-pants reporter,'' Schwarzkopf said. ``But what's different about him is that he really knew how to be at the right place at the right time without being intrusive. He was a friend right away.'' Galloway, Schwarzkopf said, ``is absolutely the finest combat correspondent I've ever known.'' ``He truly understands what ground combat is all about,'' he said. ``He wasn't like many of the other war correspondents who wrote their stories from the rear area, or in the bars in Da Nang and Saigon. He lived the life of the grunts.'' At least once, a commander put Galloway behind a weapon. In October 1965, after hearing that the U.S. Special Forces camp at Plei Me was surrounded and under siege, Galloway finagled his way aboard a helicopter heading that way. When Galloway arrived at the tiny Plei Me camp, its commander, Maj. Charles Beckwith -- who later founded the Army's Delta Force -- was less than pleased that a reporter had managed to fly in when his troops were in desperate need of food, ammunition and medical supplies. ``He was jumping up and down on his hat when I got there,'' Galloway said. ``He told me he needed everything in the world but a God damn reporter.'' What he did need was someone to man a machine gun, and appointed Galloway to the task. Beckwith's instructions were simple, Galloway said. ``Don't shoot the little brown men inside the wire because they're mine, but shoot all the little brown men outside the wire,'' said Galloway, repeating Beckwith's words. For four days and nights Galloway stayed on the line with Beckwith's troops. As Galloway was leaving after the battle, Beckwith gave the reporter an M-16 Galloway carried until the war ended in 1975. ``I told (Beckwith) that I wasn't a combatant and he said, `Son, in these mountains there's no such thing,' '' Galloway said. A few weeks later, and 14 miles away, Galloway would face many of the same North Vietnamese troops who had attacked Plei Me. On Nov. 14, hours after the fighting in the Ia Drang Valley had begun, Galloway hopped on a helicopter bound for the fighting. He was kicked off because there wasn't enough room. He boarded another helicopter, but Moore ordered it away because it was too dangerous to land. Galloway was grounded at the rear command post, itching to get to the action, he said. He hid out overnight at the base camp while other reporters retreated to beds and warm meals. Galloway asked Capt. Gregory Dillon if he could fly with him to the battle. ``He was such a young guy, but was dedicated to covering the war from the bottom end up,'' said Dillon, who retired as a colonel. ``It was pretty hairy there the first couple of days. We used to have an awful lot of reporters come in after the fact, but he was willing to take the same risks as the soldiers.'' They arrived on the morning of the second day of the battle. Galloway had just spoken with Nakayama when an Air Force F-100 Super Sabre dropped the jellied gasoline on the soldiers. Two days later, Galloway flew out to Pleiku to file his story. For the work he did in Ia Drang, UPI gave him a raise, from $135 per week to $150. ``I had an exclusive in the biggest battle of the war,'' Galloway said. ``All I had to do was survive.'' On his first tour of Vietnam for UPI, Galloway spent 16 months in-country. He would return three times, the last in 1975 as the North Vietnamese headed to their victory. ``A mentor of mine, Dickey Chapelle, who had covered World War II, once told me you can have the best story in the world, but you have to get out and live to file it,'' Galloway said.``War is a great story. There is always room for you on the front page and in many ways it's a simple story. Afterwards, you wonder if you can cover normal life. I mean you wake up one day, when you're 30, and realize you have more friends dead than alive.'' Galloway lived in Asia for a total of 12 years before transferring to UPI's Moscow bureau. Later, he moved to UPI's Los Angeles bureau as its chief. In 1982, Galloway went to work for U.S. News & World Report, eventually going to work for the magazine in Washington, D.C. But in 1992, Galloway would go into battle again, this time with tanks and armor roaring across the Iraqi desert. As he did in Vietnam, Galloway reported the war from the sharp end. Following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1991, Galloway looked up his old friend H. Norman Schwarzkopf, now commanding the coalition forces. Galloway wanted to return to the First Cav, Schwarzkopf said, but the general knew where the real action would be. ``We argued about it because I wanted him to go on the 24th Mech (Infantry Division),'' Schwarzkopf said. ``I'm sure all the way there he was cursing me under his breath thinking that I wanted to give some press coverage to the 24th.'' But Galloway soon found out that the 24th was one of the armor units assigned to the charge across the desert in an end-run around heavily fortified Kuwait. Since Galloway had been briefed on the plan, he was able to interview combat leaders before the battle, he said. The ground war started on a Monday, ended on Thursday, and Galloway's story was due on Friday. Galloway had survived another war. Joe Galloway still covers the military, but the men he met in Vietnam -- some of whom never returned home -- are never far from his mind. Galloway often gives talks on military bases, and reminds the men and women in uniform of the unspoken bond that unites a fighting force. ``I remind the soldiers that when they leave (the military) it will be the last day that the man on their left and the man on their right will die for them,'' Galloway said. ``Back when I started uncommon valor was a common virtue. It was during that time when I made some of the best and closest friends of my life.''
They Were Soldiers The requested article was not found.
are they taking off Joe Galloway's Fiction?
Back to Home > > Thursday, Sep 01, 2005They Were Soldiers The requested article was not found.
http://www.scottmanning.com/archives/000431.php
Joe Galloway in 2 diffrent places at the same time 1700hrs
Nov.14,1965 40k apart places, 1st Catecha, 2nd LZ Falcon
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0204/galloway3.htm
A Reporter's Journal From Hell by Joe Galloway
Part Three: The Things We Carried...
CATECHA In the morning the word passed that B Company was moving out; the whole battalion was moving out on an operation to the west of Plei Me Camp. I caught up with the Brigade Commander, Col. Tim Brown, who confirmed that for me.
I told him I wanted to ride in with the 1st Battalion.
Brown said it was probably going to be another long, hot walk in the sun---but I could hang around and if anything happened he would fly out in his command helicopter and I could go with him.
I nodded but had a bad feeling about this; felt I ought to go in with the troops.
The 1st Battalion troops lifted on out,
replaced by Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion 7th Cav.
1700hrs Nov 14th 1965 Catecha Later, when the radios burst into frenzied reports of action, Bravo 2/7 Cav began lining up
and loading up on choppers.
Galloway I slipped down the line, found one chopper with room and got
aboard.
Just before we lifted off a big lieutenant came down the line
looking in every chopper.
He spotted me, waved me off, and put a medic aboard in my seat.
I couldn't complain about that, but there was action out there in a place designated Landing
Zone XRay, and I couldn't get there.
Back to Brigade HQ. Col. Brown came bustling out of the tent with a couple of his staff
officers behind him.
He waved me along, moving quickly toward his command chopper, bristling all over with radio
antennas.
He told me that Lt. Col. Moore and his men had gotten into a helluva fight out there in the Ia
Drang Valley and he was headed there.
1200hrs Nov 14th,1965 LZ XRay 1200hrs > As we neared the end of the 20 mile flight we could easily locate the battlefield: cloud of
smoke rose high above it.
We dropped down to about 1500 feet circling the clearing below.
I had earphones on and could hear Col. Brown talking to Lt. Col. Moore. Brown wanted to
land; Moore was telling him the landing zone was under intense enemy fire and if he landed
that command chopper with all those antennas it would be a magnet for bullets.
Moore succeeded in waving off his boss.
aprox 1230hrs LZ Falcon Nov 14,1965
Brown told me on the radio that he was dropping me at
>Landing Zone Falcon five miles
from LZ XRay and I would have to catch a ride in from there.
More disappointment.
I jumped off the chopper at another small clearing in the scrub brush,
this one filled with a battery of 12 105mm howitzer artillery pieces.
They were firing nonstop, providing support for Lt. Col. Moore's besieged battalion in XRay.
As the day wore on more reporters drifted in.
A new AP guy I had >not previously met
Someone from Reuters, >probably
>A couple of others.
>We met every chopper begging for a ride in to the fight.
probably my friend? Not previously met? other Reporters? this dailog is from a reporter?
some one from?,
No luck.
The day was growing older and except for the incessant din of outgoing artillery fire we were
no closer to the action.
It was then that I ran into Capt. Gregg (Matt) Dillon, the 1st Battalion S-3 or operations
officer.
I asked how I could get to XRay.
He replied: I am going in with two choppers full of ammo and water just as soon as it is good
dark.
I said I wanted to go.
He said he couldn't make that decision without Hal Moore's approval, but he would get on
the radio and ask him.
I stuck with him till he picked up the radio handset and informed Moore of his plans.
"Oh yes, that reporter Galloway wants to come along."
Hal Moore responded: "If he is crazy enough to want to come in here, and you have the
room, bring him along."
All right!
I had a ride.
Now all I had to do was hide out from the rest of the gang till they got tired and headed back
to Pleiku for the night.
I disappeared behind a tent and waited them out.
Finally they were all gone and Dillon's two choppers roared in. aprox 2030hrs-2100hrs
We got aboard in the darkness and lifted off.
I was bound for the biggest battle of the war---
and I was all alone.
An exclusive!
Galloway met Jimmys wife BUT in 2 diffrent stories Joe Galloway writes
Posted on Fri, Apr. 29, 2005,
Joe Galloway His Wife Cathy?
Joe Galloway his wife Trudy?
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/galloway/11525840.htm
Saturday, Aug 27, 2005 Joe Galloway
Posted on Fri, Apr. 29, 2005
There were men such as Jim Nakayama of Rigby, Idaho,
who had so much to live for.
>>His wife,
>>Cathy,
>>gave birth to their baby girl, Nikki,
a couple of days >before
Today, Vietnam is different from when the war started and ended
By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
Knight Ridder Newspapers
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam - Never mind that dateline. It will always be Saigon to me, the place where I landed 40 years ago to cover a war that would eventually consume much of my youth and much of my country's innocence before it ended in bitter, bloody chaos three decades ago.
The old familiar streets are still here, but now they're lined with chic shops and boutiques instead of the seedy bars where delicate Vietnamese women once wheedled overpriced "Saigon Teas" out of big American GIs.
The traffic is, at once, both denser and calmer as motorcycles have replaced bicycles and the man-powered cyclo taxis have been banned from the center of town. Pedestrians seem to risk death just crossing a street full of speeding motorbikes, but it's a carefully choreographed dance. There are rules for the walker: Don't run. Don't try to dodge. Just walk slowly straight ahead and let the motorbikes adjust for you.
The Vietnamese are still the hardest-working people I have ever known, hustling and bustling and chasing a buck and a living with determination. The majority of them, 60-plus percent, are under the age of 30, and for them the war is something in the history books.
The country and the people are far different than they were when we came and when we left. In the cities, the old shabby yellow colonial buildings that survived have been spruced up and modernized. Office towers and high-rise hotels tower over their older neighbors. Cranes are everywhere in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City as new construction sprouts on every available scrap of land.
Communists may still rule here, but business is still business, and business is good in Vietnam. The country's economy grew at a rate of 7.7 percent in 2004.
Two-way trade between Vietnam and the United States has reached $6 billion annually. Trade with neighboring China is also at $6 billion a year. A local Honda plant cranks out millions of the ubiquitous motorbikes that sell for the equivalent of $1,000 to $2,000.
On the outskirts of Hanoi, a huge gate modeled after the Brandenburg in Berlin, complete with sculpted horses, marks the entrance of a new subdivision for the very affluent. A planned but still unbuilt house there sold six months ago for $250,000. The same non-existent home has already changed hands twice. The last buyer paid $450,000 for it.
Yet in poorer rural areas such as Quang Tri province, the per capita income is still around $200.
What we call the Vietnam War the Vietnamese call the American War. "You see, we have fought so many wars over a thousand years that we could never call yours `the Vietnam War' - it would be meaningless to us," explained an earnest young guide in Hanoi.
The American War takes up only one paragraph in the history book taught in grade schools in Vietnam today. But a big, busy bookstore on what once was Tu Do Street in old Saigon carries shelves full of books about the war and biographies of some of the great North Vietnamese Army commanders, such as Gen. Nguyen Huu An, who did his best to kill all of us in the Ia Drang Valley during some terrible November days in 1965.
A friend and fellow scribbler, Phil Caputo, inscribed a copy of his book "A Rumor of War" to me: "As an old French general once told another, `The war, old boy, is our youth - secret and uninterred.'" By then, in the late 1970s, both of us knew exactly what that old French general meant.
It seemed so simple and straightforward when we began that march 40 years ago with the landing of the first American Marine battalion at the port city of Danang. We were a modern superpower blocking the spread of communism to a Third World country.
War has a way of looking simple going in - and generally turns out to be far more complex and costly than the architects ever thought possible. This one sure was.
The Vietnam War consumed the presidency of the brash Texan Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent the first combat troops there. It brought young American protesters into the streets and helped topple Johnson's successor, Richard Nixon. A third president, Gerald Ford, inherited an orphaned war that ended in chaos and defeat on his watch.
To those who fought it, mostly young draftees on both sides, the war was unavoidable, a duty their country demanded of them. To those caught in the middle, the peasant farm families, it was an unending and deadly disruption to their lives. One and a half million Vietnamese perished in those 10 years. On the black granite wall in Washington, D.C., the names of 58,249 Americans who died in Vietnam are engraved.
The war gave me the best friends of my life and took some of them away almost immediately. I can still see their faces as they were then.
There was Dickie Chapelle, with her horn-rimmed glasses and a boonie hat decorated with the jump wings she'd earned in some other war long before. She told me that the first rule of war corresponding was that you must survive in order to write the story and ship your film. A Marine walking in front of her set off a booby-trapped mortar shell and a tiny fragment nicked her carotid artery. She bled to death, her head in the lap of another reporter, Bob Poos, while a Catholic chaplain gave her the last rites.
And Henri Huet, half French, half Vietnamese, all heart, all smiles. He took me on my first combat operation, teaching me every step of the way how to do this insane work and stay alive. He went down in a South Vietnamese Huey helicopter inside Laos in 1971 with the finest photographer of the war, Larry Burrows of Life magazine, and another who might have inherited Burrows' mantle had he lived, Kent Potter of UPI.
I think of them all, all 66 who died in our war giving everything they had, telling the truth and showing the real face of war to America and the world.
I think, too, of the young American soldiers who died all around me in the Ia Drang Valley and elsewhere in a war that seemed like it would never end - and never really has in my memory and in my heart.
>>There were men such as Jim Nakayama of Rigby, Idaho,
>>who had so much to live for.
>>His wife,
>>Cathy,
>>gave birth to their baby girl, Nikki,
>>a couple of days before he died on Nov. 15, 1965.
Then there were those on the other side, such as Gen. An who did his best to wipe us out in the Ia Drang and came damned close to it. Years later, in 1993, he and some of his officers went back to our old battlefield with us, walked that blood-stained ground and shed tears with us for all who died there, American and Vietnamese.
Gen. An died of a heart attack a year later.
In 1995 my good friend Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and I visited Gen. An's home in Hanoi to pay our respects to his widow and children. There, in a glass case of his most precious possessions, along with his uniform and medals and photographs of the young warrior, was a copy of our book, "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young," which told the story of the battle.
I think, too, of Col. Vu Dinh Thuoc, who started his career as a private storming the French positions at Dienbienphu and progressed to lieutenant commanding a company at the Ia Drang and on to colonel commanding a division in the final attack on Saigon.
As we later walked the battlefield together, Thuoc tapped me on the chest and said:
"You have the heart of a soldier. It is the same as mine. I am glad I did not kill you."
So am I, colonel. So am I.
And I am glad that peace and a measure of prosperity have at last come to Vietnam and its people after a thousand years of war. There's no room left for anger or bitterness, only memories, and they, too, will vanish soon enough.
----------------------
Joseph L. Galloway is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers. He spent 22 years as a foreign and war correspondent and bureau chief for United Press International, and nearly 20 years as a senior editor and senior writer for U.S. News & World Report magazine. His overseas postings included four tours as a war correspondent in Vietnam.
On May 1, 1998, Galloway was decorated with the Bronze Star with V for valor for rescuing wounded soldiers under fire in the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965. His is the only medal of valor the U.S. Army awarded to a civilian for actions during the Vietnam War. He is the co-author, with retired Lt. Gen. Hal G. Moore, of the national bestseller "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young," which was made into the movie "We Were Soldiers," starring Mel Gibson.
A Reporter's Journal From Hell by Joe Galloway
Part Four: A Season in Hell
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0204/galloway4.htm
The two cans went right over our heads and impacted no more than 20 yards from us,
the jellied gasoline spreading out and flaming up going away from us.
That 20 yards saved our lives, but through the blazing fire I could see two men, two
Americans, dancing in that fire.
I jumped to my feet.
I charged on in and someone was yelling, "Get this man's feet!"
I reached down and grabbed the ankles of a horribly burned soldier.
They crumbled and the skin and flesh, now cooked, rubbed off.
I could feel his bare ankle bones in the palms of my hands.
>>We carried him to the aid station.
>>Later I would learn that his name was Jimmy D. Nakayama of Rigby, Idaho.
>>His wife >>Trudie
>>November 7. ??
>>Jimmy died in an Army hospital two days later, on November 17.
>>For a lot of years I looked for Jimmy’s wife and daughter.
>>Last month, after the movie We Were Soldiers was released I received a letter from
>>Jimmy’s widow.
>>Last week a letter came from his daughter Nikki, now 36 years old and the mother of
>>two young sons.
>>No single day has passed since that long-ago November day that I have not thought
>>about Jimmy Nakayama,
>>the young woman who loved him,
>>and the daughter who would never know a father’s love.
When Did Galloway meet Lt. Col. Moore, Sgt. Maj. Plumley?
did Galloway load wounded when they landed on LZ Xray?
Joe Galloway has boarded Moore's, Plumley's Huey's on the morning of Nov 10,1965
and they dont even know it.
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0204/galloway3.htm
by Joe Galloway A Reporters Report from hell.
Part Three: The Things We Carried...
ref from the Digital Journalist, We Were Soldiers Once and Young hardback
story 1 Galloway meets Lt. Col. Moore, Sgt. Maj. Plumley the morning of the 11,1965 on a
6,000ft mountain top 5 miles east of Plei Me.
We Were Soldiers Once and Young hardback page32, paperback Mel Gibson on cover page 45-46 Galloway meets Lt. Col. Moore, Sgt. Maj. Plumley the morning of the 11,1965 on a
6,000ft mountain top 5 miles east of Plei Me.
from Soldier of Fortune Sept.,1983,page 27 3rd paragraph far right column
11 Nov 1965 morning. >Galloway meets >only Moore
Galloway "Moore walked over and suggested that if I were attached to them I could dam
well shave too.
from Soldier of Fortune Sept.,1983,page 27 3rd paragraph far right column story 2 Galloway meets Plumley aprox 2130hrs on Nov 14,1965 on LZ X-Ray.
from the Digital Journalist
Question How did Galloway get past LT.Col. Moore as they loaded the Hueys as each
person must be accounted for, before lift off.
Galloway "On November 10th the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division moved into the
field to continue operations around Plei Me Camp".
I hooked up with the 1st Battalion 7th U.S. Cavalry which was lifting by helicopter into a
remote area of the Special Forces Camp, searching for the North Vietnamese who
had fled.
I had my new M-16 rifle on my shoulder, 20 full magazines in my pack.
I also carried these things:
two full canteens on a pistol belt.
A sheathed bayonet.
Two Nikon F cameras on my shoulder and around my neck.
I had a 35mm lens on one, a 43-86mm zoom lens on the other.
My pack contained the magazines for the rifle.
Clean socks and drawers.
Shaving gear.
A dozen rolls of Ektachrome color; a couple of bricks of Kodak Tri X black and white.
C-rations for a couple of days.
A bottle of Louisiana hot sauce to make them semi-palatable.
Half a dozen small reporter notebooks.
Couple of spare pens.
Two books---Bernard Fall's Street Without Joy, and T.R. Fehrenbach's This Kind of War.
A fist-sized lump of C-4 plastic explosive, about which more later.
Strapped beneath my pack was a nylon poncho liner rolled inside an Army rubber
coated poncho; on its side an entrenching tool.
We heli-lifted into an old cassava field, hacked and burned out of the jungle.
Question How did Galloway get past Col. moore when they loaded the Hueys as each
person must be accounted for, befor lift off.
11 Nov 1965 morning. >Galloway meets Moore and Plumley for the first time?
I was fishing around for a couple of packets of instant coffee when the battalion
commander,
Lt. Col. Hal Moore, and his sergeant-major, Basil L. Plumley, loomed up.
The colonel welcomed me to his battalion, inspecting me closely all the while.
Finally he said these words: In my battalion, everyone shaves in the morning.
You, too.
He was looking at my cup of coffee water.
The sergeant major was grinning broadly.
I groaned and dug out my razor and bar of soap.
2. Soldier of Fortune 1983 Sept If You Want a Good Fight by Joe Galloway
page 27 3rd paragraph far right column
Galloway dosent meet Plumley till 2130hrs! Nov 14th1965 on X-Ray
Galloway " A gruff voice came out of the dark as Dillion and I stood up.
"Watch out where you walk.
There are a lot of dead bodies around and they are all American"
That was my> INTRODUCTION < to Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley.
We were soldiers Once and Young hardback page 135
Galloway " we crouched there in the darkness, tried to get our bearing, and waited for
some one to come and get us.
'Follow me and watch where you step.
There's lots of dead pepole on the ground and they are all ours:'
The voice belonged to Sergent Major Plumley. 2130hrs X-Ray nov 14,1965
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0204/galloway4.htm
A Reporter's Journal From Hell by Joe Galloway
Did Galloway load wounded on X-Ray Nov14,1965 at 2130hrs?
Part Four Nov 14,1965 2130hrs The two choppers roared in to land in the tall elephant grass.
We jumped off, turned and began throwing ammo boxes and
water bladders out.
Emptied, both choppers lifted off as we lay prone in the tall
grass.
The darkness was almost total.
Artillery rounds sailed over and exploded in the distance all
around us.
A voice came out of that darkness:
Follow me and I'll take you to the command post…
and watch where you step!
There are bodies all over the place and they are all ours.,
No ID of Voice
On wounded on LZ X-Ray Nov14,1965 2130hrs
Soldier of Fortune page 27 Galloway loaded wounded on Huey's after landing
We Were Soldiers Once and Young, page 135
Digital Journalist
Galloway dosent load anything!
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0204/galloway4.htm
The two choppers roared in to land in the tall elephant grass.
We jumped off, turned and began throwing ammo boxes and water
bladders out.
Emptied, both choppers lifted off as we lay prone in the tall grass.
We Were Soldiers Once and Young page 135
Galloway dosent load anything.
Why didnt the troops who were with the wounded take them to the CP.
was the wounded just lyng there on the landing Zone.
how did the troops know where to put the wounded,as not to be landed on whe the
Hueys landed.