Posted on 04/08/2012 11:29:25 AM PDT by smoothsailing
April 1989 archive
In a future war involving U.S. soldiers what would a TV reporter do if he learned the enemy troops with which he was traveling were about to launch a surprise attack on an American unit? That's just the question Harvard University professor Charles Ogletree Jr, as moderator of PBS' Ethics in America series, posed to ABC anchor Peter Jennings and 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace. Both agreed getting ambush footage for the evening news would come before warning the U.S. troops.
For the March 7 installment on battlefield ethics Ogletree set up a theoretical war between the North Kosanese and the U.S.-supported South Kosanese. At first Jennings responded: "If I was with a North Kosanese unit that came upon Americans, I think I personally would do what I could to warn the Americans."
Wallace countered that other reporters, including himself, "would regard it simply as another story that they are there to cover." Jennings' position bewildered Wallace: "I'm a little bit of a loss to understand why, because you are an American, you would not have covered that story."
"Don't you have a higher duty as an American citizen to do all you can to save the lives of soldiers rather than this journalistic ethic of reporting fact?" Ogletree asked. Without hesitating Wallace responded: "No, you don't have higher duty... you're a reporter." This convinces Jennings, who concedes, "I think he's right too, I chickened out."
Ogletree turns to Brent Scrowcroft, now the National Security Adviser, who argues "you're Americans first, and you're journalists second." Wallace is mystified by the concept, wondering "what in the world is wrong with photographing this attack by North Kosanese on American soldiers?" Retired General William Westmoreland then points out that "it would be repugnant to the American listening public to see on film an ambush of an American platoon by our national enemy."
A few minutes later Ogletree notes the "venomous reaction" from George Connell, a Marine Corps Colonel. "I feel utter contempt. Two days later they're both walking off my hilltop, they're two hundred yards away and they get ambushed. And they're lying there wounded. And they're going to expect I'm going to send Marines up there to get them. They're just journalists, they're not Americans."
Wallace and Jennings agree, "it's a fair reaction." The discussion concludes as Connell says: "But I'll do it. And that's what makes me so contemptuous of them. And Marines will die, going to get a couple of journalists."
They act so high and mighty about their objectivity. But what about a hypothetical in which they have highly credible evidence of fraud committed by President Obama? Would they come forth with this evidence or would they choose to protect the President? Of course, they would protect.
On the other hand, what if the evidence was against then sitting President Bush? Suddenly, their objectivity and the people’s right to know would win.
This isn’t a hypothetical. History knows it for a fact.
Ia Drang Valley.....In the movie Joe Galloway grabs a gun and starts shooting.
Mike Wallace was a liberal propagandist douchebag who did nothing but damage this country for decades. I don’t mourn his passing. Let him rot in Hell.
Give them free reign to travel around the world, recording news events and their own island to live on between assignments.......
These two and all the others seem to have taken on the personna of the gods on Mt. Olympus who sat and watched the events of the world...only these posers write about them.
William Tecumseh Sherman said the following:
“I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as little more than spies, which, in truth, they are.
If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting press dispatches from Hell before breakfast.”
“You cannot go into such a thing as a witness and remain just a witness. You can’t be neutral when people are laying down their lives to save your life.”
Read more here: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2011/09/15/1736301/joe-galloway-you-cant-remain-just.html#storylink=cpy
“Ia Drang Valley.....In the movie Joe Galloway grabs a gun and starts shooting.”
But in real life he didn’t. I read the book, and it was excellent.
when an American is traveling with the enemy...He’s no longer an American...he’s the enemy!!!
He was a 24-year-old correspondent in 1965, when the 7th Cavalry Division was surrounded and greatly outnumbered by Viet Cong. When the unit came under heavy fire in Vietnam’s Ia Drang Valley, Galloway risked his life to rescue wounded American soldiers, an act of courage that more than three decades later would earn him a Bronze Star with “V” for valor — an extraordinary tribute to a civilian.
Read more here: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2011/09/15/1736301/joe-galloway-you-cant-remain-just.html#storylink=cpy
had he been captured, he could have found himself before an NVA officer questioning his status as a non combatant.
He did not, in real life, pick up a weapon and start shooting. He did perform some heroics, for which he was rightfully recognized; but he did not act as a combatant at anytime during the Ia Drang fight (i.e., he did not take up a weapon and shoot).
I have been sick all weekend but when I finally was able to poo I swear it looked just like Mike Wallace sitting on the bottom of the bowl. With corn instead of his acne scars. A lot of corn.
He said, “I have news for you, son. I have no vacancy for a reporter but I do need a corner machine gunner and you’re it.” So I did that for a few days until we were relieved by an armor column, and the 1st Cav blew in, and that was my first hike with them.
I was leaving the camp and went over to say goodbye to Beckwith, and he allowed that I had been a halfway decent machine gunner, and he said, “Where are you going” and I said, “I’m going with the Cav,” and he said, “You don’t have a weapon.”
I said, “In spite of what you had me do in the last few days, technically speaking I’m a non-combatant.”
And he said “There ain’t no such thing in these mountains son.” He told a sergeant “Get him a rifle” and he gave me an M-16 and I marched out the gate with it on my shoulder.
Q. Had you been in the military or been trained to shoot?
A. Nope. But when you’re a kid growing up in Texas, you learn to hunt, so I could generally make out OK. So I went off with the 1st Cav and that led inevitably toward the Ia Drang valley operation.
I trust you’re feeling better. :)
they didn't sit in concentration camps while humans were put in ovens.
And they should not be bunking down with the enemy now. It's not 1968 - folks in the MSM need to grow up...
May God have mercy on his soul.
For my part , his life was not a blessing to this earth.
But when did he shoot the M-16? As far as I recall, he made no mention at all in his book about ever firing a weapon in Ia Drang. If indeed he fired a machine gun or an M-16 he ceased being a non-combatant.
That’s an interesting UPI interview, by the way, and the first I’ve seen it. Being former military myself, I do seriously question the legitimacy or truthfulness of an officer making a civilian reporter a chopper gunner for a few days; it makes for blood-stirring prose, but reality is usually something different. If in a do-or-die, last stand type of scenario where everyone’s life is on the line I can see a civilian reporter perhaps using a weapon (though they would be more apt to try and surrender and claim non-combatant status to save their own sorry asses); but what Galloway described in that interview (which relates to an incident that allegedly occurred before he ever went out to the Ia Drang Valley) just doesn’t sound factual.
But, what do I know?
More than you did before.
“More than you did before.”
Yes, as far as tne interview goes. But I’ve still never seen any documentaion that Galloway ever said he fired a weapon in Ia Drang. And that was the genesis of the original comment. The question thus remains: Did Galloway pick up a weapon and fire it in the Ia Drang Valley? Neither the book nor the interview make any mention of him doing so.
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