[Vhfcn-l] Joe Galloway

[John Hart]

It's been almost 56 years since The LZ Xray and LZ Albany Operation.  I 
haven't mentioned it much over the years to anyone other than folks that 
were there.  I guess General Moore's death, and now Joe Galloway's, and 
me approaching my 82nd birthday brings it a little more in focus.  I 
guess you can call this a TINS if you wish.

In August 1965, I went to Vietnam with the C/229 AHB 1st CAV.  24 years 
old, WO-1, graduated from Rucker June 1965.  I enlisted in 1958, and had 
been a Sgt. E-5 since 1960, so the Army wasn't new to me.  I went with 
the unit aboard a WWII vintage aircraft carrier.  Arriving in Quin Nhon 
Bay, the 2nd or 3rd day at anchor, I was tasked with flying a UH-1D off 
that boat to An Khe along highway 19 single pilot as chalk 2 in a flight 
of 2 with a CPT (who shall remain nameless) as flight lead.  We took 
off, the CPT in lead, headed west  along Highway 19, using WAC charts 
for navigation.  We went thru the pass between Quin Nhon and An Khe, and 
flight lead determined that the village just east of the pass with a 
dirt strip was An Khe.  He radioed me that we would land on that strip 
and I respectfully declined and informed him that I was proceeding to An 
Khe.  He made a pass over the dirt strip, then proceeded to follow me 
another 20 or so miles to the An Khe airstrip without further incident.  
I don't think I ever mentioned this again until now.

Anyway, we set about trying to set up living accommodations (pup tents) 
in the designated area (rice paddies) and sort of settled in with a few 
distraction like extracting a bunch of 101st airborne troopers, flying 
ash and trash, with less than 30 days in country.  The extraction 
mission of the 101st proved to be a fun thing.  I was assigned to fly 
that mission with a CW3 Dale Stockdale that had never flown a turbine 
powered helicopter, and I probably had less than 300 hours total time. I 
remember discussing the fact that I was a low time pilot with CW3 Dale 
Stockdale.  His answer was, "I can fly it if you can start it.", so we 
did what we had to do.

Around the middle of November 1965, the Plei Me outpost had been under 
siege by by the NVA and a lot of aircraft had been shot up that belonged 
to the units that usually supported that area.   We got word that the 
CAV was going to be committed to conduct an operation in that area.  I 
remember flying with my company commander, Maj. Willard Bennett, to Plei 
Me from An Khe for an aerial recon.  We made a couple of passes at 
altitude, then returned to Pleiku where we were bivouacked.  I can't 
recall whether it was that night or the a few nights later that I was 
awakened from a sound sleep at around 0200, and told to get ready for a 
mission.   CW2 Don Estes (KIA in early 1966) was the PIC on this 
flight.  It was a single ship flight to an LZ just a few miles north of 
Plei Me to deliver a hand carried OPORDER to LTC Moore to begin the LZ 
Xray operation.  We were told the reason we had to hand carry the 
message was that electronic transmission of the OPORDER wasn't secure 
enough.  We were instructed to fly without lights, including the 
landing, to avoid compromising the LZ location.  The sky was overcast 
that night, NO visible horizon, but the clouds were reported above 
10,000' MSL.  Our flight path had a few peaks around 6000' MSL, so we 
flew at 7000' MSL, mostly on instruments because there were _NO _lights 
on the ground to help us find anything.  Dead reckoning is how we got in 
the vicinity of the LZ.  When the grunts heard us, they contacted us on 
FM, and we homed in on their radio to pinpoint the LZ.  I caught some 
flak over turning the landing light on on short final going into that 
LZ, but I just had a really bad feeling that something ungood was going 
to happen if I didn't.  That feeling turned out to be very correct in 
that we were about 100' horizontally from coming into contact with a 
very large tree directly in front of us.  Don avoided the tree, we 
landed and took the message to LTC moore, and got our ass chewing for 
compromising the LZ location.

A day or so later, after we had been flying ash and trash for other LZ's 
around LZ Xray, we got word that all hell broke loose in LZ Xray, a 
bunch of ships had been shot up, and we were needed to haul troops into 
Xray because the first 4 lifts had been pinned down and needed 
reinforcements.  On our first sortie, we were chalk 4 in a heavy right 
formation.  All hell broke loose as we were on short final.  We were 
just a little to the right of the open area where we were to land, 
slightly over the trees.  Don was on the controls.  Just before we 
cleared the trees, Don attempted to go into the slot for a diamond 
formation, but chalk two moved in too close, so Don stood the old UH-1D 
on it's tail just above the trees, when things went south in a hurry.  
At the time, I had no idea what happened, but after our ship was 
recovered, we got a good look at it.  There was 12.7mm hit, on the front 
edge of the right sliding pilot armor, another 12.7 hit from overhead 
that went thru the overhead circuit breaker panel and exited the left 
windshield, and a 12.7 mm hit the compressor section of the engine.  
There were numerous .30 cal. holes in that old bird as well. The 
hostiles with the 12.7 mm were on a hill about a half mile to our right 
rear and high enough that the were looking down into that LZ.  One of 
the things that sticks in my memory was while descending thru the trees, 
cutting tree branches 6" to 8" thick with the rotor blades, was the 
thought that that was a damn expensive way to cut firewood. Fortunately, 
injuries were minor at the time.  One of the grunts we had on board 
decided he didn't want to ride it all the way down and jumped from 
around 50' AGL and broke his leg.   I sustained a small hairline 
fracture in one vertebrae which would haunt me years later.  CW3 Jimmy 
Johnson was in the 2nd or 3rd flight of 4 behind us.  He sat on the 
ground and waited while our crew got the encoding transponder out, 
gathered up our personal stuff and sauntered over to his aircraft.  SGT 
MAJ Plumley walked up to the aircraft while we were getting our stuff 
and asked me, "Are you folks OK?"  I remember telling him "Yeah, we're 
fine."   He was walking around as if there was nothing else was going 
on, but rifle fire could be heard all around us and bullets were hitting 
the downed aircraft and trees.  Once we got aboard Jimmy Johnson's 
aircraft, he pulled pitch and we headed back to Pleiku.  Shortly after 
clearing LZ Xray, Jimmy's crew chief tapped me on the shoulder, handed 
me his helmet plug and indicated that I should plug in.  I did, then 
pushed the button and asked, what's up?  Jimmy the proceeded to 
enlighten me as to how damn slow I was in getting into his aircraft, 
then continued to attempt to define my pedigree by calling me everything 
but a child of God, and informed me how much danger I had put his  crew 
in, for the duration of the 20 minute flight back to Pleiku.  He and I 
later had a big laugh about it over a few cold ones.

A few days later, Don Estes and I were selected as one of the crews to 
fly relief troops into LZ Albany.  The one thing I remember about that 
is on the 1st pass at attempting to land there, we ran into screen of 
fire coming up at us, broke off the approach, circled around and tried 
again on a shallower angle. Again, on the 2nd try, we ran into screen of 
fire coming up at us, broke off the approach, circled around and tried 
again.  The third time, we came in, it was dragging the skids in the 
leaves of the trees, balls to the wall airspeed, and when  the open area 
of the LZ came into view, stand the aircraft on it's tail to decelerate, 
and put it down just long enough to let the grunts off, then get the 
hell out of dodge.  We only took two hits in the aircraft about two 
inches from the trailing edge of the vertical stabilizer.

I never met Joe Galloway.  I was acquainted with LTC Moore from his 
visiting the helicopter units and speaking directly with Don Estes and 
me after the Ia Drang operation.  He had not forgotten the landing light.


.

On 8/23/2021 11:58 AM, Julie Kink via Vhfcn-l wrote:
> Thanks for reporting Joe's death, Ross. When Mike and I heard it last Wednesday I sat down and put my thoughts together for no particular reason, just for my own benefit. It helped.
> He was the best writer I ever met.
> Julie Kink
> sister of WO David Kink C/1/9 CAV KIA 8-3-1969
> ********
> 8-18-2021
> I feel a peculiar sadness on hearing of the death of Joe Galloway, co-author of We Were Soldiers Once And Young, and its sequel, We Are Soldiers Still. He was my friend.
> This is not meant to be one of those boastful, sobbing epistles written to attract admirers and convince them that we were “that close.” We didn’t vacation together. We didn’t meet for coffee or swap photos of grandchildren.
> Joe was simply a touchpoint for me, at the beginning of what has been the biggest journey of my life, and a mile-marker along the way, these past 28 years.
> I am a Gold Star sister. My 19-year-old brother was lost to the skies over Vietnam in 1969, when I was eight. Though he served four years after the infamous battle of the Ia Drang Valley where Joe cut his newpaperman’s teeth, my brother David was a helicopter pilot in the revered First Cavalry Division, which became Joe’s second family after his baptism there in the central highlands of Vietnam in the early part of the Vietnam War.
> In a sense, I credit Joe Galloway, and his friend General Hal Moore, with my awakening from a long sleep, and ultimately, with bringing me in contact with the men who would become my new big brothers.
> After my brother David’s death, there followed 24 long years during which I knew nothing about the pink spot on the map called “Vietnam” where he had briefly lived and died, nothing about the war in which he had given his all.  We never studied it in school. I never shared the fact, growing up, that I had lost my brother in the Vietnam War. The feeling that I needed to “discover” him, and learn about the war that took him from us, grew from a distant echo in my youth, to a lonesome, persistent longing in my college years. I needed to know, and understand, “our war.”
> And then, in 1993, I saw cross-legged on my living room couch watching an episode of ABC’s “Day One” news program, titled “They Were Young and Brave.” The documentary chronicled the five-day Ia Drang battle in 1965 that turned the course of the war, and shadowed the return, 28 years later, of the some of the pivotal players to the land where they had faced death, and seen their buddies perish. I was riveted. And I was crying my eyes out.
> I remember feeling very sorry for myself, thinking, “I’ll never find anyone who knew my brother.”
> Three years later, through a series of events that I now consider miraculous, I found myself in a crowded roomful of Vietnam veterans in a Washington, DC hotel, being introduced to Gen. Hal Moore as the sister of a fallen 1st Cavalry soldier. With the strongest handshake I’d ever experienced, and a firmly set jaw that I’ll never forget, Gen. Moore told me, “You’ll see him again.”
> He said the same words two years later, with the same firm handshake, when we were once again introduced.
> “Men who fight, shoulder to shoulder in battle . . . they’re brothers for life,” Moore said in the documentary.
> I could not know that, three years later, the pilot who had flown “high bird” on my brother’s last mission would write to me that “the bonds formed in combat are in many ways stronger than family” . . . that four years later, sitting in his study, my brother’s commanding officer would be telling me that the letter of condolence he wrote my mother in 1969 was his first . . . that 13 years later, I would be walking the old runway in Phuoc Vinh, Vietnam where my brother had flown during his one month there.
> Somewhere along the way, I met Joe, and we became friends. As a newspaper reporter myself, I greatly admired his writing skills, and I told him so. As my quest to learn more about my brother David progressed, I let Joe know how his eloquence had impacted me.
> Joe wrote,“julie:thank you for all the kind words about WWSOAY and the Day One program. hal moore and i always thought if we could help restore some pride in their service to even a few of our brother veterans...and help even a few grieving family members find some peace that all of it would be worth it. and so it is. that remains the prime intent of the forthcoming sequel...where we broaden the circle of healing to include our old enemies who did their best to kill us all...and we them. so much work to do and so little time left to do it in. gen. moore is wearing out...running down...and it breaks my heart to know this is our last operation together.”
> On July 2, 2000, I stood among more than 1,000 Vietnam helicopter pilots gathered at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC for the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association Reunion, as Joe Galloway told them,
> “I love you guys as only an Infantryman can love you. No matter how bad things were….if we called you came. Down through the green tracers and other visible signs of a real bad day off to a bad start. . . To us you seemed beyond brave and fearless…..that you would come to us in the middle of battle in those flimsy thin-skinned crates…..and in the storm of fire you would sit up there behind that plexiglass seeming so patient and so calm and so vulnerable…..waiting for the off-loading and the on-loading. We thought you were God's own lunatics…..and we loved you. Still do.”
> After sending him my newspaper editorial about a veterans gathering I attended in Wisconsin, and what it meant to see veterans reunited close to my brother’s birthday of November 11th, Joe complimented me and shared a bit of personal history - a huge honor for me.
> “Julie:Keep doing what you do so well. The guys love that, and you as well. Us old Scorpios! My birthday is 13 November. In 1965 my birthday was spent under a tea bush in the Catecha Plantation. One of the guys gave me his can of pound cake to celebrate with. Next day I went into the Ia Drang Valley with Hal Moore's bunch, and the rest, as they say, is history. That was one hell of a birthday present. Yet I would happily march right in there again for the privilege of standing beside those guys and fighting alongside them. Funny how one move, one act, one decision can change your life for all time........God bless.Joe”
> A few years later Joe shared with a fellow veteran his great admiration for us Gold Star families, mentioning me and his then wife Karen Metsker:
> “People like Julie and Karen and all those kids have holes through their hearts just as certain as if they were shot with a .357. And yet they give back to us so much more than we are able to give them. God bless them all. rgds Joe”
> When I was about to leave for my first trip to Vietnam in 2006, I wrote to Joe, and to my surprise he wrote back.
> “Godspeed, Miss Julie, and God bless you on your journey. It is a beautiful land and most of the people are beautiful as well. Although it is neither beginning nor end i pray this journey adds a large measure of peace and calm to your heart. you deserve that and much more.as of june 1 i am quitting the day job at knight ridder and moving to my house on the south texas coast. winters there; summers in colorado with gen hal moore. we are beginning work on sequel to WWSOAY. plus i have about five more books to write solo after that one. again, Godspeed and Happy Trails to you!”
> I respected Joe because he was a “reporter’s reporter” - in the same sense that people refer to “a man’s man” - someone who draws out a larger meaning, perhaps, than its dictionary definition. I sensed that he had a deep-seated commitment to tell - starkly, without embellishment - the stories of the people whose lives he intersected either for a brief moment, or for decades. He had promised them that.
> He never let them down. Faced with the awful truths of life, and the poetic horror of death, he was adept at drawing the meaning out of both.
> It seems that when he left us, he grabbed hold of an entire era, and whisked it away with his leaving.
> Godspeed, and Happy Trails to you, my friend.
> Julie Kink
>
>
>
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