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CAMPUS

The Norwich Guidon
April 29, 2004

Campus Editor: Stephen Hodgson
guidon@norwich.edu

The William E. Colby Military Writers' Symposium

Writers express Iraq War opinions during panel discussion

By John Higgins
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

Participants of the symposium are (l-r, back row) Norwich trustee James Pritzker, Bing West, Maj. Robert L. Bateman USA, Bill Butterworth IV, Robert Clasby and Paul Colby; (l-r front row) Dr. Williamson Murray, Maj. Gen. Ray L. SMith USMC (ret.), W.E.B. Griffin, Geoffrey Perret, Col. H.R. McMaster USA, and Joe Galloway.

When Norwich University hosted its ninth annual William E. Colby Military Writers Symposium on Thursday, April 18, 2004, there was no doubt the war in Iraq would be a central topic for the panel discussion held in Plumley Armory. But the war was decidedly center stage for authors commenting on military issues and how they relate to their individual books.

The members of the panel were: W.E.B. Griffin, Joseph Galloway, Geoffrey Perret, H.R. McMaster, Williamson Murray, Maj. Gen. Ray L. Smith USMC, and the discussion moderator was Bing West.

West was addressing the crowd, speaking of the current Iraq conflict, when he said, "As a new generation of warriors take the field for us, we are confronting a new type of enemy. An enemy who owes no allegiance to any state, but rather holds allegiance to a warped view of ideology and a warped view of religion. And so, you, the next generation who are going forward to protect us, face an interlay different challenge than we faced in the past. And we are convened here today to address this new face of war and how you are going to confront it."

West said the panel of distinguished writers have devoted their lives, "Trying to understand the nature of warfare and the nature of warriors, and you are the new generation of warriors."

In addition, West gave some background information about the Civilian Operations for Revolutionary Developments Support (C.O.R.D.S.), which William E. Colby ran in Vietnam in the countryside.

William Murray, the author of The Iraq War: A Military History said that, "The wars that we are going to be engaged in are going to be very much like the kinds of operations that we have been engaged in since May 15 of last year.

"These are wars in which technology will play a role," he explained, adding that, "There are fundamental aspects that have not changed since the Greeks and the Romans fought.

Authors Maj. Gen. Ray L. Smith USMC (ret.) and W.E.B. Griffin listen to a speaker dukring the panel discussion as part of the annual William E. Colby Military Writers' Symposium April 8.

"I would suggest to you that for every advantage that technology is going to give us, it is going to take something else away," Murray said.

Maj. Gen. Ray L. Smith USMC, author of No Gun RI. A Military History of the Korean War Incident said the great challenge, "Is a heightened, magnified problem that has existed for a long time, but it's much worse, now, and that is at the tactical level.

"Now, we are facing a combatant who, by design, uses the civilian population and the civilian vehicle as instruments of war," he said. "This creates a tremendous challenge, both for the country as a whole to deal with and for the individual fighting."

W.E.B. Griffin, the author of Retreat, Hell! recounted that, "The sergeant in me says 'kill them all', but I know you can't do that.

"I think we are going to have to reagent our society to fight a society that is 400 years old, and I don't know how well or how exactly we are going to do that.," Griffin said. "It's a common problem that I don't see a solution to right now."

"I only want to make two points; one, whatever the new face of war looks like, many of its features will be recognizable from the past," said Geoffrey Perret, author of Lincoln's War. "We will have some war of the kind we are used to. And all of this talk about transforming Iraq and through that transforming the Middle East carries the very real possibility that the country that is transforming the most is the United States."

H.R. McMaster, author of Dereliction of Duty, spoke of the respect he has for one of his great heroes: Ernest Harmon. Then he turned his thoughts toward the current Iraq war. "I think that one of our greatest dilemmas that we face, right now, is that we are changing our defense establishment in many ways, based on a flowed vision of future war, and it's a vision that is technology-centric."

McMaster explained that such a viewpoint, "Is a based on the assumption that we can win future war very rapidly at low costs, very efficiently based on the combination of surveillance platforms and information technology."

"I think that we are launched on a 100-year war against terrorism," said Joseph L. Galloway, author of We Were Soldiers Once…And Young. "We are certainly fascinated with the technology, the technology of war.

"There have always been changes in the technologies of war, from the longbow, to the crossbow, to gunpowder, to machine gun, to the fighter aircrafts, to the submarines, to nuclear weapons, and now predator unmanned drowns, which can blow things up with the man flying it back in the States," Galloway said. "We have no exclusivity on the technology as quickly as we have it. Wherever you command, you have to carry them in your heart first, last and always, and only in this way will you prevail."

W.E.B. Griffin and Col. H.R. McMaster look on as Geoffrey Perret makes a point in the public session.

After the opening introductory segment, West asked Perret and McMaster to respond to the query, "If what we are doing now is the wrong concept, what will be the right concept?"

"When Jefferson was writing the Declaration of Independence he noted that is was a good idea for a country to show respect to the opinions of mankind," Perret said. "In the case of Iraq, the United Stated has shown no respect and talked about how it's prepared to go in alone.

"The people, the anger, the hostility, among people who share American values right now is almost limitless," Perret said, adding that "Americans have no idea. If things continue the way they are, the United States will end up fighting this war entirely on its own, which will turn into America's War on the World."

"Don't be arrogant with your power, because if you do, the young men, in order to protect their manhood, will act to oppose you. Don't use your power indiscriminately, because if you do, the young men in order to protect their manhood will have to oppose you. And don't show fear, because if you do, the young men in order to show their debt will have to oppose you," Smith said.

Writers recount personal experiences in Iraq

By Carson Miller
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

Maj. Gen. Ray L. Smith USMC (ret.) and Bing West discuss their Colby Award-winning book, The March Up with Mark Johnson on WDEV Radio's The Mark Johnson Show, which was broadcast live from the Norwich University bookstory (Brailsford photo)

For two military writers and former United States Marines, their march into the Iraqi city of Baghdad would be one that added a new perspective for military writers who attended the annual Military Writers' Symposium at Norwich.

Bing West and retired Gen. Ray Smith wrote The March Up Taking Baghdad with the 1st Marine Division. Both are former Marines with combat records dating back to the Vietnam era.

West was a member of the force recon team "Primness," which initiated Operation Stingray.

"I was an infantry platoon leader in Vietnam in combined action platoons, recon, the usual stuff in the bush," West said, who is also a CNN military analyst during Operation Desert Storm and was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.

West, who was also the Dean of Research at the Naval War College and Vice President of the Hudson Institute, is owner of the GAMA Corporation, a company which conducts combat training for the United States Marine Corps.

"I wrote a book that was about my squad working with the Vietnamese in a village for 485 days," he said. We started with 14 Marines, seven of which were killed."

West has written about both the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq.

Part of the reason West and Smith wrote this book was to relate how prepared or not prepared the Marines were for the Iraqi war compared to their days in Vietnam.

"We found that the Marines have the same training that we did, but they're better shots, and their officers are more willing to enter into discussions about how to carry out a mission right, rather than just give direct orders," West said. "I think that, basically, the Marines today probably have an edge over us in Vietnam."

Smith is one of the most decorated Marines since WWII, including the Navy Cross, Silver Star Medal with gold star, Purple Heart with two gold stars, and many other medals and commendations.

"I spent 34 years on active duty, from private to Maj. Gen.," he said, explaining how proud he is to have written the book with West. "It was an opportunity for us to go watch the generation that followed us to war and to see how the training has changed.

"It is an honor to be chosen as one of the recipients of the Colby Award, but it's also been a great experience," Smith said. "Some of my favorite writers also are up here, both old and new."

"Most military histories are either written by old guys looking back on what they did, perhaps with a little revision in memory in many cases, or young guys looking back on what old guys did," Smith said. "This is old guys doing a play-by-play on the next generation that is following us is doing in a live format. It is kind of a different perspective."

The March Up Taking Baghdad with the 1st Marine Division authored by Bing West and Major General Ray Smith (USMC Retired) was selected as the winner for the 2004 Colby Award.

Galloway speaks to students about encounters as reporter in Vietnam

By Stephanie Tavss
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

Maj. Gen. Ray L. Smith USMC (ret.) Col. H.R. McMaster USA, and Joe Galloway sign books for students in the Norwich bookstore.

A self-proclaimed "born journalist," Joseph Galloway's career spans four decades. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf called him "the finest combat correspondent of our generation – a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend."

Unlike many people who tried diligently to avoid the Vietnam War, he "made such a huge pain in the butt" of himself that his boss finally allowed him to go overseas to report on the Vietnam War.

Renowned war correspondent and author Joseph Galloway visited Norwich as part of the Annual Military Writer's Symposium. He was a featured speaker to Professor ScottField's American Short Stories class.

During the hour and a half discussion, topics such as how he became a war correspondent, how he got connected with the 1st Cavalry, and his opinions on the war against terrorism were covered.

Galloway's desire to be a journalist started when he was just a kid.

"[I] read the collective works of Ernie Pyle, his columns from WWII and thought, if there is a war while I'm a young man, I want to cover it," he said, explaining that "[It would] be a lot easier 40 years down the line to explain why I went to a war, than to explain why I didn't go."

When the war in Vietnam started, Galloway was ready to go.

"It's going to be America's war, my generation's war, so I started trying to get there, and I wrote my bosses a letter a week," in order to get permission to go.

After the first seven months working in Saigon, Vietnam, covering the Marines, who "walk to work," Galloway heard of an experimental Army division which had 435 helicopters in its inventory.

"And I thought, 'Eureka! I shall ride to work!'," he said.

Galloway then went to work with the Army's 1st Calvary.

"I am happy to say that the Marines taught me at least enough to keep the Army from getting me killed," Galloway added.

Galloway has been a war correspondent with United Press International, the senior editor and writer with News and World Report and is currently a senior editor with Knight Ridder. With retired Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, he wrote We Were Soldiers Once…and Young, the critically acclaimed non-fiction account of the first extensive battle of the Vietnam War. It was based on Galloway's real life experiences as a war correspondent.

Galloway's book recalls life as Vietnam War journalist

By Mario V. Carpanzano
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

Author Joseph Galloway remembers the words that Sgt. Maj. Basil l. Plumley said to him close to 40 years ago: "You can't take no pictures down there, boy."

They were sitting in the central highlands of Vietnam.

"He yelled that down to me as the bullets flew by our heads," Galloway said, who recounted the experience during the ninth annual William E. Colby Writers' Symposium held at Norwich University.

Galloway is the co-author of the book We Were Soldiers Once…and Young.

For three days, he related the problems facing the United States during the war, in various classes where Norwich students also heard from five other authors.

Galloway's book, which he co-authored with Maj. Gen. Hal Moore, was recently made into a movie staring Mel Gibson called, We Were Soldiers. It is the story of the 1st battalion of the 7th Air Cavalry Division, who fought the very first battle of the Vietnam War.

"Before that, it had been a contest between our advisors and the Viet Cong," Galloway said. "Then this new experimental unit came in flying on helicopters."

The new division made it possible for infantry to get to different places that they couldn't, before, instead of walking to a battle, which could take hours, if not days, leaving the men tired and hungry, and making it very hard to reach them with supplies.

"With the helicopters, they could jump in and out of battles quickly," Galloway said. "And they called it airmobile."

Over the three days of the symposium, Galloway spoke very candidly about his experiences with the 7th Calvary Division and the battle at Ia Drang, where he was the only reporter on the field for the better part of the battle.

"I asked one of the pilots if I could go with him to the field," Galloway remembered. "He said if I was crazy enough, hop on, so I did."

What he didn't know was, he was going to be dropped into what was some of the heaviest gunfire American soldiers would see in the entire war.

The American battalion was at the bottom of the IA Drang Valley in the central highland of Vietnam. The North Vietnamese forces wanted control of the highland to better support an offense invasion of South Vietnam, but they were not counting on the presence of the American forces when they made the plan.

"The North Vietnamese regulars attacked our camp at Plie Me, then retreated back into the hills," Galloway said. "It was Hall Moore and the 7th Cavalry's job to find and destroy the enemy."

Not knowing they were going into the base camp of an entire regiment, which was over 1,200 strong in soldiers, the 1st Battalion of the 7th Cavalry became surrounded and outnumbered by the North Vietnamese regulars, who were very highly trained and motivated.

This wasn't Galloway's first time in a hostile area.

"I spent three months before the battle of IA Drang with the Marines who were in Vietnam," Galloway said. "So I knew what it was like in-country and what I was getting into."

The battle raged on for three days and nights of intense fighting, and Galloway was in the middle of it.

In the movie, you see Sgt. Maj. Plumley hand me an M-16," Galloway said, explaining that, "That never happened, because I brought my own."

His co-author, Maj. Gen. Hal Moore, was also at the battle -- not there to report on the conflict, but to fight.

Moore was then a Lieutenant Colonel and Commander of the 1st Battalion of the 7th Cavalry Airmobile Unit. Galloway spoke very highly of Moore. He said they spent a long time researching and assembling their book.

They both traveled to Hanoi in the IA Drang Valley to meet with the commander of the North Vietnamese regiment.

"He went back and forth with me and Hal about our tactics and the battle," Galloway said. "We asked him why he didn't attack from the rear, because he could have crushed us. He told us there is only so much a commander can see and know."

The book is being called one of the best accounts of battle in any war; is a bestseller; and, now, a movie starring Mel Gibson.

"The movie is about 85 percent real life and 15 percent Hollywood," Galloway said. "But that was fine for us, because most movies are the exact opposite."

Galloway and Moore were skeptical about making the movie. They didn't want it to be something they weren't proud of or a movie which didn't show what the soldiers of 7th Cavalry fought and died for.

Galloway, who was played by Barry Pepper in the movie, said he did an "okay" job.

"I told him that, back then, I wasn't as green or new as he portrayed me to be," Galloway said.

Clasby uses technology to recreate Civil War battle sites

By Daryl Buttrick
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

Among the tops authors attending this year's William E. Colby Military Writer's Symposium was Robert Clasby, author of Gettysburg. You Are There.

This book is Clasby's work to show his readers how the battle of Gettysburg was fought and how the battleground looked. He has taken photos of many reenactments and digitally altered the pictures so the readers may get a better picture of what the land looked like in 1863.

Clasby has been interested in the Civil War and other events in American history since his youth. A native of New England, Clasby was encircled by history.

"I grew up in Boston, so I was surrounded by history, and my mother was avid about taking us to every historical site in New England, so she would run us around and got me very interested in American history," Clasby said.

Clasby graduated from Notre Dame University in Indiana, with a degree in Finance. After college, he went straight to playing professional football, where he played for the St. Louis/Arizona Cardinals. While playing football, he was always studying the Civil War.

"I was a little unique of the NFL crew I would travel with," he recounted. "I would always have a thick history book when I was on flights to and from games."

After playing football, he decided to write a book on his views of the battle of Gettysburg. The book is one of the first books of its kind, because Clasby uses digital imaging to recreate, to his knowledge, how the battlefield of Gettysburg appeared.

He has done this by taking many photographs of reenactments, as well as of the fields alone, and combined them into one. The result is a crystal-clear image of the scene of the Battle of Gettysburg.

"The reenactments in the book are actually a combination of 75 to 120 photographs molded into one," Clasby explained, adding that it took him about a year and a half to create the book.

"When I decided to do it, I thought this was a unique way to present the battles," he said. "Nobody has really done it in book form using digital recreations of the battle. So really, a lot of the time was done doing research and taking pictures."

Clasby needed to learn the technology in order to create his vision.

"I had an idea of what I wanted to create, but I did not have the skills in that field, so I kind of just had to teach myself digital imaging," he said.

In Clasby's book, he has had to remove many things that have grown or been built in the 150 years since the Civil War. For example, there were fewer trees, back then, and he has digitally removed most of them from his photos of the current site, but he didn't want the land to be unrecognizable to the people who have been to Gettysburg National Park.

"I want people to be able to go to the battlefield, look at the images, and recognize where they were, so I didn't want to change so dramatically that you couldn't recognize anything, but I did take out all the modern buildings, cars, streets, and roads," said Clasby.

Clasby spoke at the luncheon lecture on April 9, where he spoke about his book and how he created the images.

"Clasby has taken us into the computer age with a fascinating look at how modern technology can help us visualize key events in the Civil War's most famous battle, an impressive technical achievement," said Earl J. Hess, author of Pickett's Charge.

Clasby shot all of the modern photographs in the book and did all the writing. The black and white photos he got from the Library of Congress. Clasby is currently working on a second book about the Battle of Antietam.

The Norwich Guidon is a twice-monthly student newspaper distributed at Norwich University. It provides laboratory experience for students in the Communications program. Claims asserted by letter writers, editorials and other articles do not represent the positions of Norwich University. The Norwich Guidon welcomes signed letters to the editor. They should be no longer than 300 words. Unsigned letters will not be printed, but names may be withheld upon worthy request. All letters are subject to editing for length and good taste. Mailing address: The Norwich Guidon, Communications Center, Norwich University, Northfield, VT 056632. www.norwich.edu/guidon. If you have any questions or comments about the paper, please contact Professor Ken Bush at kbush@norwich.edu.