04/16/2024
I was able to copy the text, but could reproduce that red flag with stars on it that depicts the general officers rank.
January 18, 2024
The Honorable Joseph R. Biden President of the United States The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President,
We write to recommend the award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, posthumously, to Joseph .L Galloway, whose long career as a combat journalist, foreign correspondent, and author advanced our nation's security interests, promoted world peace, and greatly contributed to a more complete public understanding of the Vietnam War, and more broadly, heroism ni military service, within our national culture - the three broad criteria long established for this award.
Joe Galloway's career in journalism began as a 17-year-old cub reporter for his Texas hometown newspaper, The Refugio County Press. He was soon hired by United Press International and sent to Kansas City. In the early years of the Cold War, he was assigned to interview Harry S. Truman. That interview led to a long friendship with the former President. The relationship resulted in an early education ni geopolitical affairs, which inspired Joe to report on strategic and military issues, first ni Vietnam, then in the Persian Gulf, ni Bangladesh, and from Moscow as United Press International's Bureau Chief.
Galloway understood that freedom of the press is a foundation of democracy, and that accurate news
coverage of armed conflict is essential to keeping the American public fully informed. nI this vein, Joe's
best-selling book, We Were Solders. Once and Young, dealt with the first major battle between the United States Army and the forces of North Vietnam, in South Vietnam's la Drang Valley. There, the First Battalion of the Seventh Calvary was surrounded by the 33'" and the 66* regiments of the People's Army of Vietnam and the H-15 Main Force Battalion, a Viet Cong unit. Galloway's coverage of this bloody engagement began with his flying into the battle on a resupply helicopter that came under heavy fire while landing. Once on the ground, Joe recorded the heroic sacrifice and courage of the engaged American infantry, allowing the American public to understand the searing experience of their Soldiers in this new war. He also became a participant in the battle, risking his life by dashing through the flames of a misplaced na**lm strike to carry an American Soldier to safety. For this, Galloway was awarded a Bronze Star with Combat V, the only civilian in the Vietnam War to be so honored.
An unspoken question asked in We Were Solders is, if so much is to be asked of our Soldiers, should not their government be certain that the security interests of the nation are served by their sacrifice?
We Were Soldiers was made into a very popular, feature-length motion picture that illustrated the historical significance of the la Drang battle, while demonstrating the importance of this vital question. Both the book and the movie may be said to have contributed to a truer understanding of the honorable service of our men and women, who served ni the Vietnam War, and did much to change the negative, antimilitary sentiment that had greeted our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Airmen upon their return home. This story, both in text and film, made a highly positive contribution to our nation's greater cultural understanding of our nation's warriors' sacrifice during the Vietnam conflict.
Joe Galloway was known, always, to be pro-Soldier. He hated anything that smacked of disrespect for the inherent bravery of the men and women who served our nation during times of war. nI 1996, Joe learned that the Department of Defense had received from Shaw University, an HBCU school, an investigative report which delved into why no Black Soldier had received the Medal of Honor in WWI, despite the fact that 1.2 million Black Americans had served during the War.
Their findings indicated blatant racism. After an internal review, the Department of Defense agreed and forwarded to President Clinton a recommendation that seven Black Soldiers, whose MoH award had been downgraded to a medal of lesser standing, be now awarded the Medal of Honor. However, the recommendation languished on President Clinton's desk, until Lt General Julius Becton, a former commander of the First Calvary Division, decided to call Joe Galloway in April of that year. He told
Joe to expect a visit from an "old friend", Colonel Cash.
The next day, Colonel Cash arrived with a 4-5 inch thick binder containing citations, recommendations and interviews, and asked Joe to direct him to the restroom. Joe pointed ni the direction of the men's room, and as he left, Galloway, who had marshalled every intern at U.S. News, had them take apart the large document, copy it, and then re- assemble the original. 15 minutes later, Colonel Cash returned and picked up the folder, shook Joe's hand, and left.
The title of the issue that hit the newsstand on the morning of May 6, 1996, and its lead article were entitled, Military Injustice. That very afternoon, Bill Clinton announced that he would award the long-denied Medals of Honor to those seven servicemen or their surviving families. Without Joe's extraordinary reputation for integrity, General Becton and others at the Department of Defense might never have come forward. Indeed, this was a case where Galloway's journalism advanced the interests of the nation by promoting racial equity.
Decades later, Galloway, again reporting for U.S. News and World Report, covered the first Persian Gulf War. While embedded with the "tip of the sword" of a US armored corps leading the famous "Left Hook," Joe rode with the armored calvary in a curving maneuver which swept across hundreds of miles of Iraq's desert to the Euphrates River, thus cutting off Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait from supplies and reinforcements. Joe's Triumph Without Victory is a history of the campaign waged by the United States and its Allies to free Kuwait from its Iraqi invaders. Given the importance of an oil-producing Kuwait to the United States, this war was presented as squarely in our national interest. Galloway's writing highlighted the extraordinary competence of our Armed Forces as they led an Allied Coalition to restore Kuwaiti sovereignty. Galloway's work again served the national interest by demonstrating the nation's formidable military competence in waging a just war many thousands of miles from its shores, when its national interest was truly at risk.
Less well-known is Galloway's reporting on the Bangladeshi independence movement in what was then East Pakistan. In 1971, the Pakistani Army brought a repressive regime of martial law to crush the nascent attempt of Pakistan's eastern provinces to assert self-determination. Not content with strict curfews, the Pakistani Military began a campaign of extrajudicial executions and assassinations of politicians, student leaders, and university professors. To obscure these crimes, al foreign journalists were ordered out of the country. Feigning illness, Galloway stayed past the evacuation deadline set by the authorities.
Slipping away from Pakistani custody, under cover of darkness, he walked many miles to the American Consulate in Dhaka. There, with the assistance of Counsel General Archer Blood, he interviewed the Consulate's Bangladeshi employees, who described the widespread atrocities being perpetrated by Pakistani forces. Galloway immediately reported what he had heard and witnessed; his dispatches and photographs caused worldwide outrage, resulting in intervention by Indian Army units to end the atrocities and genocide.
His actions clearly advanced the cause of peace in South Asia and in the wider world.
From early in a career spanning half a century, Joe remained true to the principle that freedom of the press si a primary foundation of democracy, and that news coverage of geopolitical events was essential to keeping the American public fully informed.
Mr. President, we believe that Joe Galloway advanced the cause of World Peace through his reporting on Bangladesh; that he promoted the national security interests of the nation by reporting the extraordinary competence of our Military in the First Persian Gulf War; that he introduced into popular culture a truer picture of the sacrifice of its warriors at war in Vietnam with the publication of We Were Soldiers, Once and Young; and that he promoted racial harmony by helping the nation to redress agreat wrong by honoring 7 Black American heroes with the Medal of Honor.
Therefore, we the undersigned, al Veterans, proudly submit the nomination of Joseph L.Galloway for the Award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Although not formally in the Armed Forces, Joe Galloway was one of us.
Major General Michael Myatt USMC Retired
Commander 1* Marine Division Operation Desert Storm
Captain Jay C. Mancini
USMC Retired
Vietnam Force Reconnaissance
Captain Diane Carlson Evans
US Army Nurse Corps, Vietnam Founder, Vietnam Women's Memorial Washington, D.C.
Captain Marvin J.Wolf
US Army Retired
Received Battlefield Commission in Vietnam
