Every year, MRE honors Galloway, who risked his life covering the Vietnam War, with our top journalism award
President Joe Biden on Thursday posthumously awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to the late war correspondent and historian Joseph L. Galloway. Military Reporters & Editors applauds the president’s action, which saw him grant the second-highest civilian award posthumously to four individuals as well as 15 others including former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney for her role in investigating the Jan. 6, 2020, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
His widow, Grace Galloway, accepted the award on his behalf. “Here’s the list,” she wrote on her Facebook page. “Joseph Galloway is in very good company.”
Joe was an intrepid war correspondent who spent 18 months in Vietnam during the first of four reporting tours there for United Press International. In that first tour, he survived a brutal three-day battle in the Ia Drang Valley that became the subject of a book and Academy Award-winning movie, “We Were Soldiers.”
Led by U.S. Army Lt. Col. Hal Moore, 450 soldiers with the 1st Cavalry Division’s 7th Cavalry Regiment’s 1st Battalion defeated a larger North Vietnamese Army force, even after the Americans were briefly overrun, in what proved to be the first major battle of the long war.
Joe, who decades later was honored by the Army for his role in the battle that ran over three days in November 1965 in South Vietnam’s Central Highlands, was a longtime friend of MRE and numerous journalists in the organization. He spent decades covering conflicts around the world and was always ready to share his insights with other reporters who were learning how to cover conflict.
Recalling how he got into journalism, Joe told of a conversation with his mom about possibly joining the Army. “What about your journalism?” she asked.
Each year, MRE honors journalists who have done an exceptional job covering the military in print media. Our top honor is the Joseph L. Galloway Award for Distinguished Journalism.
Joe Galloway
You can read Joe’s last column written for Military Reporters & Editors in February, 2010 here.
A native of Refugio, Texas, Joe worked as a war correspondent and bureau chief for UPI, reporting not only from Vietnam but other combat zones including the Persian Gulf War.
Long after the war, Joe wrote “We Were Soldiers Once … And Young,” with Moore, a retired three-star general, on a handshake agreement. The book, universally recognized as the definitive account of the 1965 Battle of Ia Drang, rocketed to the best-seller list and was made into a Hollywood movie starring Mel Gibson as Moore and Barry Pepper as Galloway. Moore and Galloway wrote the screenplay with the movie’s director, Randall Wallace.
Joe served as a consultant for the 2016 PBS documentary “The Vietnam War,” directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, and was a prominent figure in another documentary, “War and Truth,” directed by Michael Samstag, that documented the history of embedded journalists from World War II through the Iraq war.
Joe died Aug. 18, 2021, at 79, in Concord, N.C. An Associated Press account of his death said that Galloway’s Bronze Star came with a V for valor and was given in 1998 for rescuing wounded soldiers under fire during the battle at la Drang. He’s the only civilian awarded a medal of valor by the Army for actions in combat during the Vietnam War.
“Joe had a big heart,” said Sig Christenson, a co-founder and board member of MRE, and war correspondent in Iraq and Afghanistan over the course of both conflicts. “I was a few weeks back from the invasion of Iraq and sure I’d lost my mind. Joe and I had never met, but we spent three hours at a tavern in Washington, D.C.
“Joe, who had done it all, set me straight, telling me that I was really perfectly normal. Much later, he joked that I was crazy as hell. That was Joe, a true friend with a wicked sense of humor, but also a deep well of courage and conviction. Brave and decent, he was a soldier’s friend and comrade, ready to tell their stories. He was my generation’s Ernie Pyle.”
About Military Reporters & Editors (MRE)
Military Reporters & Editors is the leading organization for U.S. journalists covering national security. MRE provides resources, support, and networking opportunities for its members, fostering excellence in journalism and promoting public understanding of military and national security affairs.
