Commentary: Now's the time for Obama to just say 'no'

There are times when less is more and more is the wrong answer, and right now in Afghanistan would seem to be one of those times. | 10/02/09 16:48:02 By - Joseph L. Galloway

Commentary: Afghanistan: Heads I win; tails you lose, Mr. President

Suddenly the heat is on President Barack Obama to decide, right now, whether to heed his military commanders' appeal for another big surge of American troops or deal with the possibility of defeat within a year in Afghanistan. | 09/24/09 19:47:33 By - Joseph L. Galloway

Commentary: Afghanistan isn't worth one more American life

The debate over our creeping military mission in distant Afghanistan grows ever hotter, and before we march even deeper into trouble, perhaps it's time to dig out the old Powell Doctrine and answer the eight questions it poses. | 09/03/09 17:26:18 By - Joseph L. Galloway

Commentary: Regrets for My Lai massacre decades late

Former Lt. Rusty Calley has finally spoken about the My Lai Massacre in terms of his remorse for the deaths of between 300 and 400 unarmed Vietnamese villagers who were slaughtered on one terrible day in March, 1968, 41 years ago, and his remorse for the ruined lives of American soldiers he and others ordered to do the killing. | 08/28/09 15:03:26 By - Joseph L. Galloway

Commentary: Health care debate shows Democrats can't lead

The sad truth is that the Democrats can't govern even when they have all the marbles in their pockets. It doesn't appear that they even know how to fight back when the stakes were never higher. | 08/21/09 17:37:49 By - Joseph L. Galloway

Commentary: This country needs an outburst of common sense

If ever there were a time for comprehensive health care reform, it's now, and yet the forces of darkness are lining up against this urgent need, buttressed by lies, mobs inflamed by those lies and millions of dollars changing hands and changing votes in Washington, D.C. | 08/07/09 17:50:46 By - Joseph L. Galloway

Commentary: It's time to get out of Iraq while the getting is good

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has suggested that he might speed our withdrawal from Iraq by pulling out an additional brigade combat team by year's end. Good idea! How about pulling out FIVE more brigades by then? | 07/31/09 18:12:06 By - Joseph L. Galloway

Commentary: Lessons of Vietnam applicable to today

It was half a century ago, on the night of July 8, 1959, that the first two American soldiers to die in the Vietnam War were slain when guerrillas surrounded and shot up a small mess hall where half a dozen advisers were watching a movie after dinner. | 07/16/09 14:40:23 By - Joseph L. Galloway

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

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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.

AUDIO

(Courtesy of Newseum.org)

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