From intern reporter in Refugio, Texas, to consultant to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Joe Galloway, 65, has been witness to many history-making events in his 40 years of reporting. Speaking to De Anza College students on Oct. 18, Galloway described a career in war correspondence filled with events that, at times, brought tears to his eyes. For the most part, though, few things set him off more than a discussion of American foreign policy in Iraq.

“Invading Iraq was the dumbest thing we ever did. Dumber than Vietnam – and Vietnam was dumb,” Galloway said. The Vietnam War is a topic that Galloway knows a lot about. In 1965, when he was 23 years old, Galloway was sent to Vietnam as a reporter by United Press International.

While there, he took part in the Battle of Ia Drang with the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry under Lt. Col. Hal Moore. During the battle, Galloway braved enemy fire to come to the aid of a badly wounded soldier, an act for which he was later awarded the Bronze Star with “V” for valor, the only such medal awarded to a civilian by the Army during the Vietnam War.

Galloway was sent back to Vietnam as a reporter three more times.

“When I first left Vietnam, I thought ‘I never want to come back here again. I never want to hold dying people in my arms and watch the light fade from their eyes again,'” he said.

Galloway’s career not only took him back to Vietnam, but to Japan, Indonesia, Singapore and Iraq. He was a UPI bureau chief in Moscow during the Soviet era and covered the 1971 India-Pakistan War.

As a young reporter in Missouri, he was mentored by former president Harry Truman.

Decades later, after witnessing numerous conflicts first hand, he worked as a consultant to Powell at the State Department. Galloway – previously reluctant to take a position in federal administration and, as he said, “go over to the dark side” – was sworn into government service on one of history’s greatest “days before”: Sept. 10, 2001.

Galloway is writing a sequel to the 1992 book he wrote with Moore, “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young,” which chronicled the Battle of Ia Drang and was made into a movie starring Mel Gibson in 2002. He remains involved in numerous veterans’ organizations and maintains a column on national defense affairs, in which he has written numerous critiques of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq.

“War isn’t noble,” Galloway said, “but I believe soldiers are. The Bible says, ‘No greater love hath man than this, to lay down his life for his friends.’ And (in Vietnam) they did it every day for 10 years. That’s nobility.”