About Joe Galloway

Photo of Joe Galloway Joseph L. Galloway is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers, working in their Washington Bureau and is also author of a weekly column on military and national security affairs. He recently concluded a brief assignment as a special consultant to Gen. Colin Powell at the State Department.

Galloway, a native of Refugio, Texas, 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.

Photo of Joe Galloway in Vietnam

summer of 1965; place: Danang, South Vietnam. the camera: Nikon F 35mm black body. the weapon: 9mm Swedish K sub machine gun; one bad ass dude, shoot you with the Nikon or the K, depending on what you seemed to need.... joe

His overseas postings include tours in Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Singapore and three years as UPI bureau chief in Moscow in the former Soviet Union. During the course of 15 years of foreign postings Galloway served four tours as a war correspondent in Vietnam and also covered the 1971 India-Pakistan War and half a dozen other combat operations. In 1990-1991 Galloway covered Desert Shield/Desert Storm, riding with the 24th Infantry Division (Mech) in the assault into Iraq.

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf has called Galloway "The finest combat correspondent of our generation — a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend."

He is co-author, with LTG (ret) Hal G. Moore, of the national bestseller We Were Soldiers Once … and Young — which was made into a critically acclaimed movie, We Were Soldiers, starring Mel Gibson. He also co-authored Triumph Without Victory: The History of the Persian Gulf War for Times Books.

On May 1, 1998, Galloway was decorated with a Bronze Star Medal with V 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.

Galloway received the National Magazine Award in 1991 for a U.S. News cover article on the 25th anniversary of the Ia Drang battles, and the National News Media Award of the U.S. Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1992 for coverage of the Gulf War. In 2000 he received the President's Award for the Arts of the Vietnam Veterans Association of America. In 2001 he received the BG Robert L. Denig Award for Distinguished Service presented by the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association.

He is a member of the advisory boards of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, the nonprofit organization No Greater Love (founded to assist the victims of war), the 1st Cavalry Division Association, and the National infantry Foundation.