Memorial Day memories: The courage of war correspondents
I never fought in the Vietnam War. I joined United Press International, a worldwide wire service, in 1975 at the end of that struggle. My heroes were UPI war correspondents - Leon Daniels, Kate Webb and Joseph L. Galloway.
Daniel was a friend. He died in 2006. Webb was a role model and later mentor. He died in 2007. I knew Galloway, who interviewed him for this excerpt, from his legendary war accounts.
The word "courage" is derived from the Latin "core" or heart. Courage takes heart physically and morally.
Physical courage is bravery in the face of pain, hardship, death or threat of death. Moral courage is a response to opposition, persecution, denial of franchise or personal loss.
War correspondents usually demonstrate both types of courage.
Combat reporting in America dates back to Thomas Penn in the Revolutionary War. In an essay for Wired several years ago, journalist John Katz wrote that Pine statues "should greet incoming journalism students" with his words "chiseled above newsroom doors and taped on laptops." "
Perhaps the most famous combat dispatch in American journalism was Paine's lead in "The American Crisis, 1776": "These are the times that try the souls of men."
Galloway served four terms in Vietnam. He also covered the Persian Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
In 1998, he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for gallantry with a "V", the only American citizen to receive the honor. He helped rescue a wounded soldier under fierce enemy fire in the 1965 Battle of Ia Drang in a landing zone X-ray in Vietnam.
You can read about it in his co-authored best-selling book, "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young". It was the basis for the 2002 film "We Were Soldiers" starring Mel Gibson. Galloway was portrayed by actor Barry Pepper, also known for his role as the sharpshooter in "Saving Private Ryan".
Galloway wrote of the Battle of La Drang at Stars and Stripes, recalling the helicopter ride to the landing zone, where a low-strength battalion of the 7th Cavalry was under relentless enemy fire. "It did not escape my attention that I was now with the 7th Cavalry, Custer's old dress, and the chances were good that none of us would make it out of this place alive."
Some parts of his creation are terrifying. Here's about the second day of the war when an Air Force F-100 Super Saber jet fighter dropped two cans of napalm on a command post.
The first could pass right over our heads and hit 15 or 20 yards from us, right where the two engineers were standing. Then they were shouting and dancing in the flames. I got up and ran into the burning grass and helped carry PFC. Jimmy D. Nakayama for the Aid Station."
I asked Galloway about courage.
He says that physical courage is the means to "stand firm in the midst of an imminent battle"; To remain determined to face the formidable enemy and numerical odds."
Moral courage for veterans" means a willingness to stand up and fight for the benefits that were promised long ago when they were barely more than boys.
"Too often our country is prepared to send its young men and women into harm's way, only to forget them and their sacrifices when the war is over.
"It is then that the veteran must fight for that promise: good health care for his wounds and illnesses. The right to a good education. The right to a good roof to shelter his family."
According to the RAND Corporation, one in five American veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, or depression. "Mental health care can help, but veterans may face many obstacles. And even for those receiving care, recovery depends on whether the treatment is of high quality or not. "
The giants are struggling during the epidemic.
A year ago, due to COVID-19, the Department of Veterans Affairs postponed examinations to determine eligibility, creating a backlog of 350,000 requests. In March 2021, Congress held a hearing on how to address the backlog of VA health care, disability benefits, and other services to temporarily disadvantaged veterans.
Congress and the Veterans Administration must address this regrettable situation.
I'll end with a link to a poem written in the voice of my friend, Leon Daniels, about the courage of my idol, Kate Webb, who came to visit us at Iowa State's journalism school in 2005.
Webb went missing in Vietnam and was believed to have been captured and executed by the Cambodian Khmer Rouge. (She was taken captive by the North Vietnamese.) The burnt body of a white woman was found, and everyone believed it was the web. His obituary actually ran in the New York Times.
Webb then resurrected from the dead, entered the Saigon bureau, and wrote a lead as brilliant as Thomas Pine: "It was like a butcher's shop in Eden, beautiful but terrible."
This year Webb was featured in a new book, "You Don't Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrite the Story of War," by Elizabeth Baker.
Memorial Day is 31 May. Let us remember the soldiers who lost their lives defending America and the combat journalists who told their courageous stories so that we never forget.