Citadel graduate's heroic death ends in love story I watched a preview for "We were soldiers" while awaiting the screening of "Black Hawk Down". During that day and night with Colonel Moore's battalion, I snapped a photograph of Moore's command group: the colonel, Sergeant Major Basil L. Plumley, Captain Greg Dillon, radio operator Bob Ouellette, Tom Metsker and a shotgun guard. covered the battle, wrote the best-selling book We Were Soldiers Once Galloway: I honestly don't know. Karen Galloway is 58 years old and was born on 05/31/1964. By the end of the fighting, more than 230 Americans and some 3,000 North Vietnamese were dead at Ia Drang. }); He carried an M16 rifle alongside his notebook and cameras, and in the heat of battle, he charged into the fray to pull an Army private out of the flames of a napalm blast. Metsker Leadership Education Fund was established to help fund leadership Cathy's brother Steve LaPlante read the article and called his sister. and friends honor Vietnam hero. And I think it will be well received, September 11th or not. eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), Disclaimer: Galloway was present as a journalist. Twenty-five years after these events, I wrote a cover article for U.S. News & World Report on a battle America had forgotten in a war it didn't really want to remember. Fund, writers, family members, and classmates alike marked the occasion. That was what I wanted. International Baseball Visionary Robert Smiths Cause of Death, Detroit Tigers Bill Freehans Death after Years of Illness, Story Behind Legendary Footballer Gerd Mllers Cause of Death, 1st Cavalry Divisions Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, Pivot Gangs Producer Squeaks Cause of Death at 26, B. Wayne Hughes Obituary, Industry Pioneer Dies at 87. A guy named Michael Norman wrote a book about finding the guys who survived from his Marine platoon in Vietnam [These Good Men: Friendships Forged from War (New York: Crown Publishers, 1989)]. That was out of sheer ignorance of the situation, the enemy, the culture, and the country. Joined by an Army medic who was immediately shot and killed, Galloway raced toward enemy fire to pull Nakayama from the flames. View Details. But I don't fault anybody's memory of Vietnam. Bud Alley, a close friend of Galloway's, confirmed the news of his death on Wednesday, August 18. Suddenly we were face to face. The cause. In the movie, the first person back home to receive one of those terrible telegrams from the Army was Cathy LaPlante Metsker, Tom's sweetheart, who wore a miniature Citadel ring engraved inside with the words: To My O.A.O. (One And Only). Joe and Theresa had two sons, Joshua and Lee. You never forget this. This problem has gone on for a long time and has run very deep. I loved A Bridge Too Far, which was not a great movie, but a really good movie. It is thoroughly researched, written with equal rations of pride and anguish, and it goes as far as any book yet written toward answering the hoary question of what combat is really like, author and Vietnam War correspondent Nicholas Proffitt wrote in a review for the New York Times. Karen Galloway lives in Falls Church, VA; previous cities include Indianapolis IN, Fullerton CA and Ipswich MA. Completed College. Galloway later recounted the battle in a best-selling book, We Were Soldiers Once and Young (1992), written with retired Lt. Gen. Harold Moore, the U.S. battalion commander at Ia Drang. According to him, no people were doing dope in his company. Baby Mia Jade Riley: Parents Lani and Tom Riley speak out after dog attack killed their 5-week-old infant, 'We have lots to reveal': Madeleine McCann lookalike Julia Wandelt posts footage of meeting with PI probing claims, Kyle Sambrook: Hiker falls 100ft to death while carrying his dog in one hand through 'appalling' weather, Killer mom Lindsay Clancy was suffering from drug withdrawal and had 'worst side effects,' says friend, Bruce Willis's mom Marlene 'not sure if her son still recognizes her' as 'aggressiveness' creeps in. Proceedings: What sets the heroes apart from everyone else? His father worked in the Army during World War II, and Joe meet him after the war had ended. There was someone else in that house who wasn't shown in the movie. And they can all be wiped out in one bad day. They're profane, and theyas you saycarry a lot of baggage. [1] The medal was in recognition of his heroism on November 15, 1965, during the Battle of Ia Drang,[2] the first major battle by U.S. and North Vietnamese troops in the Vietnam War. I know that from the time line of our own movieeight years. (Joe Gromelski/Stars and Stripes), In November 1965, journalist Joseph Galloway hitched a ride on an Army helicopter flying to the Ia Drang Valley, a rugged landscape of red dirt, brown elephant grass and truck-size termite mounds in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. And most of them answered no. I knew he was in Ia Drang and on the cover of "We Were Soldiers Once and Young," but I did not know the story of his whole life. Joe married Karen Metsker in 1998. His mother persuaded him to go into journalism instead, reminding him that as a boy he had written a weekly newspaper for their neighborhood, banging away at a 1912 Remington typewriter. On the first day, you'd draw a clean uniform, you'd get a shower, you'd get the docs to take care of your leech bites and your scratches. let gads_event; Galloway: I think it has to make a difference. Sign up forthe US day News daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what we have to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Several fans, friends, and supporters reacted and stated their condolences on social media websites following this tragic news. the book. Galloway got married to his first wife, Theresa Magdalene Null, in October 1964. Mr. JOESEPH GALLOWAY's comments to us at our last Annual Battle of IA DRANG-1965 Alumni Dinner held over Veterans Day Weekend 2001 near the Vietnam Wall was that Hollywood got it wrong every damn time in its Movies about the VIETNAM WAR. window.adsContainer = {"positionAfterTitle":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle5_Rel_Newrev","isOrganicUserAd":true,"max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position2":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_After_Title_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position3":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Below_Next_Rel_Newrev","max_width":300,"max_height":250},"position4":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle_Rel_Newrev","max_width":300,"max_height":250},"position5":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle1_Rel_Newrev","max_width":300,"max_height":250},"position6":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle2_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position7":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle3_Rel_Newrev","max_width":300,"max_height":250},"position8":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle4_Rel_Newrev","max_width":300,"max_height":250},"position9":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle5_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position10":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle6_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position11":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle7_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position12":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle8_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position13":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle9_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position14":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle10_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position15":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle11_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position16":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle12_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"positionTop":{"code":"Article_Desktop_970x250_Header_Rel","isOrganicUserAd":false,"max_width":970,"max_height":250},"positionBottom":{"code":"Article_Desktop_Sidebar_Bottom_Rel_Newrev","isOrganicUserAd":true,"max_width":300,"max_height":600},"positionBottomRight":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_After_Title_Rel_Newrev","isOrganicUserAd":true,"max_width":336,"max_height":280}} Karen Gallaway, Karen M Metsker, K Rudel, Galloway Karen. That's always there, and that's powerful too. Karen and the kids and I will go over to Arlington National Cemetery where Tom Metsker rests, just downslope from the Tomb of the Unknowns, and we will visit with him. He was a writer, known for We Were Soldiers (2002), Shock and Awe (2017) and Home from the War: The Voices of Vietnam (2009). Tom Metsker, a battalion intelligence officer killed in the Vietnam War. The first night I stepped to the door of the reunion hospitality suite and saw someone who had to be Karen, now married and the mother of two little girls. }); He worked as a reporter for UPI during the early part of Vietnam War in 1965. And how they saw it and how they saw themselves, before and after, this is the stuff of literature, in the case of O'Brien and in the case of many others. Proceedings: Most people seem to prefer the real thing, or something as close to the real thing as possible, rather than a political polemic. }) Galloway, who had arrived on the first night of the battle, said he planned for years to write a book with Moore but had put it off until 1980, when he was flipping channels and came across a Vietnam War sequence in the movie More American Graffiti, which brought back memories of Huey helicopters and deafening machine-gun fire. He was previously married to Dr. Gracie Liem Lim Suan Tzu, Karen Metsker and Theresa Magdalene Null. The truth is that 25 years ago I did not have the skills to write that story, and if I had no one would have published it.. What he had to say was pretty unremarkable, but I learned that his old company commander was in the audience. I can't wait to see the movie. The captain's daughter -- who inherited her dad's eyes and his penchant for mischief -- and the reporter who had marched with him, and unlike him had survived the battle, became good friends. He When the book that I co-authored with my friend and captain-in-battle, Lieutenant General (ret) Hal Moore, We Were Soldiers Once and Young, was turned into a movie last year, millions came to know a great deal about the Battle of Landing Zone Xray in the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965. His life story would make a fantastic book and movie by itself! He also appeared in documentaries such as The Vietnam War (2017), directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. Jim Webb writes beautifully. BY JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY. Last fall, we established the Thomas C. Metsker Leadership Education Endowment Fund at The Citadel. (Laughter) In some ways, I look at what has transpired in Afghanistan and I think I ought to be there. Join Facebook to connect with Karen Metsker and others you may know. Metsker's grandson, Lex, then 7, gave his mother away. Proceedings: You tell stories about your Civil War ancestors. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Mr. Galloway, whose reporting took him from the jungles of Vietnam to the halls of the Kremlin and the deserts of Iraq, was 79 when he died Aug. 18 at a hospital in Concord, N.C. 1949 . See the ..'RICK RESCORLA Petition'.. Thread in ..'The Movie'.. -Message Board- Section of the above ..'WE WERE SOLDIERS'.. website. ), the former This is vintage Joe Galloway. He seems determined to address every ghost from that war. Thirty-three years later, he was decorated with the Bronze Star for helping to rescue a badly wounded soldier while under enemy fire on November 15, 1965, during the Battle of Ia Drang at Landing Zone X-Ray in Vietnam. }); Twenty-five years after these events, I wrote a cover article for U.S. News & World Report on a battle America had forgotten in a war it didn't really want to remember. When Joe Galloway lived in North Carolina with his third wife until his death. document.querySelector("#adunit").addEventListener('click',function(){ Monique Samuels Divorce Rumors From Chris After 10 Years! An After working as a military parties correspondent and columnist, he spent more than two decades with UPI and retired in 2010. Please kindly scroll down and use the comment box to share your feelings about the heartbreaking news for tributes and prayers. I turned and walked out. A native of Refugio, Texas, Galloway spent 22 years as a war correspondent and bureau chief for United Press International, including serving four tours in Vietnam. Seven and a half years ago my wife died of cancer. Karen Lynn Metsker, age 61, Covina, CA 91724 Search . A baby girl, Karen Doranne Metsker, who was just 17 months old and would never know her father, but like every child who has suffered such a loss in war would miss him forever. taught to cadets by The Citadel. ga('ads.send', { I know that when they test-screened the movie, one of the questions they asked the audience was, "Do the events of September 11th change the way you feel about this movie?" Commentdocument.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id", "a3e5144367e7c61b6de7e542ec152dcd" );document.getElementById("fd0a2639fa").setAttribute( "id", "comment" ); Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. window.googletag.pubads().addEventListener('slotRenderEnded', function(event) { bullet in war. Joseph Lee Galloway was born in Bryan, Texas, in 1941. He remained there for 16 months and was later UPI bureau chief in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, and in New Delhi, Singapore, Moscow and Los Angeles. After the war, they got together once a year and went to town to buy boots. Every war is different, and this may be the most different yet, in terms of difficulty to cover it. [13], In 1991, Galloway received a National Magazine Award for a U.S. News cover article on the Ia Drang battles in Vietnam. moment to carry on, someone more desperately in need of medical attention, 'Sudoku Godfather', dead at 69, fell in love at 23 after health scare, Who is Sean Lock's wife? My Great Grandfather Galloway lost his right leg at the Second Battle of Manassas in the Civil War, and Great Grandfather Reid lost his left leg at the Battle of the Wilderness. He won a couple of righteous Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart. He was 79. battalion commander, and Joseph Galloway, a UPI war correspondent who ga('ads.send', { Galloway is a native of Refugio, Texas. Both sides claimed victory: North Vietnamese leaders came away certain that they could outlast the Americans, while U.S. commander William Westmoreland was convinced that his troops could bleed the enemy to death over the long haul, as Galloway and Moore put it. Galloway partnered with Moore on another book, We Are Soldiers Still (2008), and teamed with Marvin J. Wolf to write They Were Soldiers (2020), about the postwar lives of Vietnam veterans. the dinner, several friends and alumni remembered Metsker as a cadet, If they watched closely and followed the main characters, they might have noticed a young Army Captain named Thomas C. Metsker who was Moore's battalion intelligence officer. Zone X-Ray became famous when Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (ret. Tom was wounded in the shoulder and ultimately ordered to board a Huey helicopter full of other wounded Americans. They had two sons, Joshua and Lee. Born November 13, 1941 Died August 18, 2021 (79) Add to list Next month, the Ia Drang band of brothers -- Karen's honorary uncles and the kids' honorary granddads -- will come to town as they always do this time of year. [Tom Metsker] risked his life, ultimately gave up his life up, that I thought, you can run from it, and it will catch you and eat you or you can face it. View Details. The 1948 Stanley Cup Finals was a best-of-seven series between the Detroit Red Wings and the defending champion Toronto Maple Leafs. Galloway: I would say his top priority right now is the war in Afghanistan and the war against terrorism. hitType: 'event', Readers may write to him at: Knight Ridder Washington Bureau, 700 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045. They had two sons, Joshua and Lee. Proceedings: I think that's a good place to end. Galloway: To my knowledge, yes. Galloway, whose reporting took him from the jungles of Vietnam to the halls of the Kremlin and the deserts of Iraq, was 79 when he died Aug. 18 at a hospital in Concord, North Carolina. 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. There was such anguish in her eyes that I couldn't face her. Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who led U.S. forces during the Gulf War, once called him the finest combat correspondent of our generation a soldiers reporter and a soldiers friend., Joe Galloway is greeted by Medal of Honor recipient Harvey "Barney" Barnum before a ceremony at the White House in 2007. And the media are the hardest to control. Galloway: Are they two kinds of love? According to his friend and former editor John Walcott, Joe Galloway's cause of death at 79 at a hospital in Concord, N.C. was his complications from a heart attack. },false) (One And Only). The least likely guy out there may be the one who does something worthy of a Medal of Honor. His first wife, Theresa M. Galloway (May 12, 1948-January 26, 1996), died of cancer. It is selfless service in the extreme. It appears that the movie will be well worth waiting for Mr. Galloway mentions "Sands of Iwo Jima." Senator Max Cleland and 7th Cavalry veterans John Henry Irsfeld and Dennis Deal. Joe Galloway, at a Medal of Honor ceremony from Ia Drang battle helicopter pilot Bruce Crandall at the White House in 2007. Learn how your comment data is processed. The captain's daughter who inherited her dad's eyes and his penchant for mischief and the reporter who had marched with him, and unlike him had survived the battle, became good friends. After they divorced in 2003, [16] he married Dr. Gracie Liem Lim Suan Tzu, a friend for more than 45 years, on May 13, 2012, in Las Vegas. It contained the details of how Metsker died, giving his seat and his life for a brother. What was the most difficult? And I think something like that shapes the way you see the world all your life. 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. hitType: 'event', I thought that was pretty good reasoning, even though I ended up fighting anyway. My prayers and condolences go out to his family and friends. (Michelle U. Blesam/U.S. },false) Joe Galloway. in our power to keep your memory alive and tell your story of all those Galloway: Not quite yet. Then he started as a reporter in Kansas City by joining UPI in 1961, and for two years, he was bureau chief in Topeka, Kansas. They never will. You can contact Karen by sending an email to kmetsker@comcast.net Main Address 206 Washington Ave, Bakersfield, CA 93308 County: Kern County FIPS: 60290002002006 Possible connections via main address - Debrah Craig, Chanel Jewlean Hanley Latitude, Longitude: 35.4157758, -119.024002 cannot even begin to tell you what one bullet, fired among the millions "Captain old that November in 1965-I was just 17 months old.". }); Unfortunately, the longtime journalist who embedded with the 1st Cavalry Division during Vietnam War passed away on Wednesday, August 17, 2021. In 1993 he said: You do this out of a sense of obligation to those who died and those who lived those especially. There is a Petition to President BUSH on.. For more on Sept 11th's Hero of Tower 2 ..RICK RESCORLA.. see the Thread titled: Wow! In, Fullerton CA and Ipswich MA ( may 12, 1948-January 26, 1996 ), Disclaimer Galloway. False ) ( one and Only ) ghost from that war of his death shoulder and ordered! 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