Joseph L. Galloway

American newspaper correspondent and columnist (1941–2021)
other people named Joseph Galloway

Joseph Lee Galloway (November 13, 1941August 18, 2021) was an American newspaper correspondent and columnist. During the Vietnam War, he often worked alongside the American troops he covered and was awarded a Bronze Star Medal in 1998 for having carried a badly wounded man to safety while he was under very heavy enemy fire in 1965. From 2013 until his death, he worked as a special consultant for the Vietnam War 50th anniversary Commemoration project run out of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and has also served as consultant to Ken Burns' production of a documentary history of the Vietnam War broadcast in the fall of 2017 by PBS. He was also the former Military Affairs consultant for the Knight Ridder chain of newspapers and was a columnist with McClatchy Newspapers.

Galloway was born in Bryan, Texas, on November 13, 1941. His father, Joseph,

Galloway retired as a weekly columnist for McClatchy Newspapers in January 2010, writing, "I have loved being a reporter; loved it when we got it right; understood it when we got it wrong In the end, it all comes down to the people, both those you cover and those you work for, with or alongside during 50 years."

In We Were Soldiers, a 2002 film based on his 1992 book, Galloway is portrayed by actor Barry Pepper. Actor Edward Burns portrayed him in the miniseries Vietnam in HD, and Tommy Lee Jones played him in the 2017 film Shock and Awe.

In 1991, Galloway received a National Magazine Award for a U. S. News cover article on the Ia Drang battles in Vietnam. In 1992, he received the New Media Award of the National VFW for his coverage of the Persian Gulf War for U. S. News. In 1999, Galloway received the Vietnam Veterans of America Excellence in the Arts Award, along with Gen. Hal Moore, for his journalism and for We Were Soldiers Once and Young at the VVA National Convention in Anaheim, California. In 2002, Galloway received the Robert Denig Award for Exceptional Service of the U. S. Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Assn. In 2005, he received the Tex McCrary Award of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. On May 1, 1998, Galloway was decorated with the Bronze Star with "V" device.

Galloway married his first wife, Theresa Magdalene Null, in September 1966 and they remained married until her death on January 26, 1996, from cancer. Together they had two sons, Joshua and Lee. In 1998, Galloway married Karen Metsker, daughter of Captain Thomas Metsker who was Hal Moore's Intelligence Officer and was killed in action in 1965 at the Battle of Ia Drang in the Vietnam War. After they divorced in 2003, he married Dr. Gracie Liem Lim Suan Tzu, a friend for more than 45 years, on May 13, 2012, in Las Vegas. In attendance at the ceremony was former U. S. Senator Max Cleland and 7th Cavalry veterans John Henry Irsfeld and Dennis Deal. The Galloways resided in Concord, North Carolina. Galloway died on the morning of August 18, 2021, at a hospital in Concord, North Carolina. He was 79, and suffered from a heart attack prior to his death.