Commentary: 100,000 reasons to shed no tears for McNamara
Beginning in 1965 and for nearly three years McNamara each year drafted into the military 100,000 young boys whose scores in the mental qualification and aptitude tests were in the lowest quarter — so-called Category IV's. Men with IQ's of 65 or even lower. The cold, hard statistics say that these almost helpless young men died in action in the jungles at a rate three times higher than the average draftee. | 07/07/09 17:00:29 By - Joseph L. Galloway
Commentary: Galloway on McNamara: Reading an obit with great pleasure
Back in 1990 I had a series of strange phone conversations with McMamara while doing research for my book We Were Soldiers Once And Young. McNamara prefaced every conversation with this: "I do not want to comment on the record for fear that I might distort history in the process." Then he would proceed to talk for an hour, doing precisely that with answers that were disingenuous in the extreme — when they were not bald-faced lies. | 07/06/09 15:43:13 By - Joseph L. Galloway
Commentary: As U.S. troops pull back in Iraq, wars' toll falls now on Obama
The American military withdrew to their bases outside the cities in Iraq this past week to thunderous cheers, marching bands and fireworks from the ever-grateful and always xenophobic Iraqi citizenry. | 07/03/09 17:03:01 By - Joseph L. Galloway
Commentary: Obama's promise of a new beginning now hollow
Who stole our change? Who hijacked a popular uprising that was going to put a stop to business as usual in Washington, D.C.? What happened to Barack Obama on his way to the White House? | 06/19/09 15:27:38 By - Joseph L. Galloway
Commentary: What’s up with Dick Cheney?
If former vice president Darth Cheney had been arrested for any of his multiple felonies, he might remember the most important of the Miranda rights that the arresting officer would have read to him: You have the right to remain silent. | 06/04/09 16:01:40 By - Joseph L. Galloway
Commentary: A day to remember the price of freedom
Memorial Day is upon us, and for most Americans that means the first holiday weekend of a new summer. For most, it's time to dust off the barbecue pit or head to the nearest beach or hit the mall for the big sales. For those who wear, or have worn, the uniform and those who love them, however, it means something different. | 05/22/09 15:45:42 By - Joseph L. Galloway
Commentary: Six lessons for President Obama
While the presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan were in Washington, D.C. this week telling President Barack Obama what he wanted to hear, things back home were busy going from bad to worse. | 05/08/09 18:39:03 By - Joseph L. Galloway
Commentary: Obama and D.C. dance the torture minuet
There they go again, those folks in Washington, D.C. Everyone wants the power; nobody wants the responsibility. We're back to the question of which Bush administration officials ordered Justice Department lawyers to concoct some legal way to use illegal torture methods on the prisoners we were taking in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and elsewhere. | 04/23/09 17:16:38 By - Joseph L. Galloway
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Attention readers: The RSS feed for the Joe Galloway section on McClatchyDC.com has moved here as part of an upgrade to improve service. Please update your subscription in your RSS reader. | 04/13/09 17:47:04 By -
Commentary: Fallen brothers found - and lost
As with so much in life and in death, there was news this week that was joyous and sad and bittersweet all at once for the small community of the Vietnam War’s band of brothers of the Ia Drang Valley. | 04/10/09 15:01:48 By - Joseph L. Galloway
Commentary: 'Afghanistan is about to become Mr. Obama's war'
Here’s the thing about President Barack Obama’s newly announced Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy: It’s long on Afghanistan, but not long enough, and it’s way short on Pakistan. Pakistan is the key to everything in that part of the world, and it appears to be on the verge of spinning out of control, beset by radical Muslims who are stepping up suicide bombings and armed attacks. | 04/02/09 08:09:44 By - Joseph L. Galloway
Commentary: A great day for the U.S. Army
On a bright, sunny spring day in Georgia, Fort Benning and the National Infantry Museum dedicated a new parade ground, and the first of what will be thousands of basic training companies broke it in by marching in review for their graduation. | 03/19/09 20:44:19 By - Joe Galloway
Commentary: A shining city on a hill can't have dungeons in its basements
It turns out that even the most paranoid among us were right to be afraid of what George W. Bush's White House and Justice Department were up to in the days and months after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. | 03/05/09 20:18:33 By - Joseph L. Galloway
Commentary: Doomed to repeat history in Afghanistan?
President Barack Obama this week is laying out the road home from the war in Iraq during the next 19 months. More or less. It's time - past time - to begin a major drawdown of U.S. forces in a war that was begun on false pretenses with little foresight or planning and a rosy forecast of a swift victory and an even swifter withdrawal by the summer of 2003. | 02/26/09 19:06:23 By - Joseph L. Galloway
Commentary: Afghanistan has the smell of South Vietnam in 1965
President Barack Obama this week announced that he was ordering an additional 17,000 American troops to Afghanistan. America’s ground commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. David McKiernan, welcomed the news of the reinforcements that'll be on their way this spring and summer, but in a frank assessment of the situation, he said that we are "at best stalemated" in the war against a resilient, home-grown enemy that's proving to be very adaptable and dangerous. | 02/19/09 16:54:18 By - Joseph L. Galloway
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GALLOWAY HONORED BY SPJ
Joe Galloway has won the Sigma Delta Chi award for General Column Writing for commentary dealing with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the instability in Pakistan and the policies of former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
BOOK: WE ARE SOLDIERS STILL
"We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam." is the sequel to Joe Galloway's and Gen. Hal Moore's bestseller "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young."
Read an excerpt from "We Are Soldiers Still."
Army Magazine review by Col. Cole C. Kingseed, retired.
ABOUT JOE
General H. Norman Schwarzkopf has called Joseph L. Galloway, a military columnist for McClatchy Newspapers, "The finest combat correspondent of our generation — a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend."
Galloway is the co-author, with Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, of "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young," a story of the first large-scale ground battle of the Vietnam War. The book was made into a movie of the same name. Galloway was portrayed in the movie by actor Barry Pepper.
Sigma Delta Chi
Joseph L. Galloway received a citation from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). The selection of columns that won the 2008 Sigma Delta Chi award for General Column Writing dealt with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the instability in Pakistan and the policies of former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
- Commentary: it's time to do right by the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, February 13, 2008
- Commentary: Gen. Taguba knew scandal went to the top, June 20, 2008
- Read the other stories here
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(Courtesy of Newseum.org)
