Joe Galloway Retiring - Military Journalism Mourns

One of the finest military correspondents in US historyis hanging up his pen. The intro to his final column:

To quote Mr. Dickens, they were the best of times and the worst of times. This is Galloway writing "-30-" and farewell to this weekly column after almost seven years and wrapping up half a century in the newspaper business.

Oh, I will still write an occasional op-ed piece when the bastards in Washington, D.C., blast across the line into moron territory, and there's always another book waiting to be written.

From that first day in November of 1959 when Jim Rech, the managing editor of The Victoria (Texas) Advocate, hired me as a reporter to this day when I say my goodbyes I have, with few and momentary exceptions, loved all of it.

This is not going to be an obituary for the newspaper business. I have loved being a reporter; loved it when we got it right; understood it when we got it wrong. I hope print-and-ink daily newspapers will outlive me by many years. Somehow.

And his bio:

Joseph L. Galloway is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and a nationally syndicated columnist. One of America's preeminent war correspondents, with more than four decades as a reporter and writer, he recently concluded an assignment as a special consultant to Gen. Colin Powell at the State Department.

Galloway, a native of Refugio, Texas, spent 22 years as a foreign and war correspondent and bureau chief for United Press International, and nearly 20 years as a senior editor and senior writer for U.S. News & World Report magazine. In 1990-1991 Galloway covered Desert Shield/Desert Storm, riding with the 24th Infantry Division (Mech) in the assault into Iraq. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf has called Galloway "The finest combat correspondent of our generation -- a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend."

By: Brant