Post by Paul Stevens

Good Thursday morning on this Aug. 19, 2021,   Today’s Connecting brings sad news of the death of our colleague Joe Galloway, who during a journalism career of nearly five decades reported from the Vietnam War, the Kremlin and Iraq. He died Wednesday at the age of 79.   He spent 22 years as a war correspondent and bureau chief for United Press International, including serving four tours in Vietnam. He then worked for U.S. News & World Report magazine and Knight Ridder newspapers in a series of overseas roles, including reporting from the Persian Gulf War in 1991. He was best known for his book, with retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, “We Were Soldiers Once ... And Young,” which recounted his and Moore’s experience during a bloody 1965 battle with the North Vietnamese in the Ia Drang Valley. The book became a national bestseller and was made into the 2002 movie “We Were Soldiers,” starring Mel Gibson as Moore and Barry Pepper as Galloway.   Congratulations are in order for Roxana Hegeman (Email), longtime AP Wichita correspondent, and Tom Slaughter (Email), an AP bureau chief and New York vice president who later headed the Inland Press Association, on their selection to the Kansas Newspaper Hall of Fame’s Class of 2021.   Comparisons of the Fall of Saigon in 1975 and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan prompts another set of memories from an AP photojournalist who covered the Vietnam War. Our colleague Carl Robinson shares his memories from his home in Australia. https://conta.cc/2W0T7Ws