Telling Their Story

By Nate Macon

[1] The scene begins with a transition from Fort Benning, Georgia, where Julie Moore and Barbara Geoghegan part ways after delivering KIA announcement telegrams to the other spouses. We see just how awful the war at home is, and the quiet crack of sporadic automatic weapons fire begins before the scene shifts back to nighttime at Landing Zone X Ray, where Lt. Col. Moore is praying over the bodies of his men killed in action. This is the first scene in which we really get to know UPI journalist Joe Galloway after he convinced Maj. Crandall to let him hitch a ride on his Huey into battle and introduced himself to Moore and Plumbley. It’s the first time we hear Galloway’s story and his motivations for inserting himself as a non-combatant into the first major battle of the war.

[2] Moore’s strong Catholic faith is present throughout the movie, especially in early scenes in which he prays with his children as well as with a worried, young Lt. Geoghan who is conflicted about the clash between his roles as a soldier and a father. Often, memorized prayers or psalms can be recited with little thought or feeling, no real fervor or deeper meaning than the comfort of repeating familiar words to a higher power. But as Moore recites Psalm 130 over the bodies of his men, conviction drips from his tone and body language. He is clearly feels a great responsibility for the well being of his troops, which has been a theme throughout the entire film. He refuses to leave the field until he knows that every casualty, dead or wounded, is accounted for and on his way back to base.

[3] The focus remains on Moore throughout his prayer, as he asks for “eternal rest” for his men, with “perpetual light” shining upon them, but the noise of not so distant fighting and the flashes from artillery fire continue around him. After maintaining a respectful distance and waiting for Moore to finish his prayer, Galloway kneels beside him.

[4] Moore, clearly in a somber mood, asks Galloway if he has a death wish. “Why are you here?” Galloway replies, “because I knew these dead boys would be here, sir.” What initially strikes the viewer as a very strange comment crystallizes as the conversation continues on. The reporter explains that members of his family have fought in every war the United States has ever been involved in, telling a story that lightens the mood about his two grandfathers who had each lost a leg in the Civil War and would meet once a year in Galveston to pick out a new pair of shoes for the two of them. Then we see Galloway’s true motivation:

When it came to this one, I didn’t think I could stop a war. Just thought maybe I’d try to understand one. Maybe help the folks back home understand. Figured I could do that better shooting a camera than I could shooting a rifle.

[5] And thus we come to understand why Galloway put himself in harm’s way voluntarily. He didn’t enlist (even though Moore mentions that his guts prove that he could be a soldier) because he felt he could better apply his talents to helping the American people understand a war that most didn’t. In the midst of a massive anti-war movement that was questioning why we were even in Vietnam, Galloway sought to tell the story of the men serving overseas, men who didn’t have a say in the political rationale for their involvement. However, he ultimately was thrown into the fight himself and ended up earning a Bronze Star for valor for his role in the rescue of several wounded GIs, the only such award bestowed to a civilian during the Vietnam conflict.

[6] As the conversation ends and Moore wishes Galloway good luck, we see him flinch as a mortar shell explodes in the vicinity, not as badly as when he first landed at LZ X-Ray, but still a flinch, nonetheless. By the end of the battle, Galloway is a hardened veteran, easily contrasted with the clean, innocent-looking press corps that landed after the fighting was over.

[7] Galloway continued working as a journalist, covering Americans in combat in the Persian Gulf War, as well as co-authoring We Were Soldiers Once, and Young and the sequel We Are Soldiers Still with Lt. Gen. Moore. He is a fitting co-author, someone who had lived through the same hell as Moore and had the journalistic experience to help Moore make the story of the Ia Drang campaign come to life. At the end of the film, he expresses doubt in his ability to tell the story. Moore replies, “Well you’ve got to, Joe. You tell the American people what these men did here. You tell them how my troopers died.” He did in more ways than one. Galloway earned the respect of the soldiers he reported on because he was there with them, eating the same chow, braving the same conditions, and taking the same enemy fire. This scene captures why he did it and shows the respect and appreciation he earned from the men he covered.