TCA 2011: Marching out of Vietnam War films

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There have been dozens of movies about the Vietnam War and Joe Galloway, a UPI correspondent during the controversial war, has walked out on nearly all of them.

Two he could sit through were 1987’s ‘Hamburger Hill’ and 2002’s ‘We Were Soldiers,’ the latter based on the book he co-wrote with Harold G. Moore.

‘I walked out on most Vietnam War movies,’ said Galloway, speaking at the summer media tour in Beverly Hills during a panel about History’s upcoming ‘Vietnam in HD.’ Of the film ‘We Were Soldiers,’ Galloway added that it was ‘about 75% accurate, and about 25% Hollywood [embellishment],’ a pretty good batting average for a movie, he joked.

Galloway is one of the many faces to be featured in the six-hour miniseries to air in the fall on History. As a young war correspondent, Galloway found himself dropped into one of the war’s most fearsome battles at Ia Drang (he was played in the movie ‘We Were Soldiers’ by Barry Pepper). In 1998, Galloway was belatedly awarded a Bronze Star for rescuing wounded soldiers under fire during the battle -- and is the only journalist from the Vietnam War to receive such an honor.

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-- Martin Miller