BT Collins came storming into my life like a tornado about fifteen years ago, not long after publication of the book Gen. Hal Moore and I had written, We Were Soldiers Once...and Young, was published.

He came to see me in my office at U.S. News & World Report magazine...filling that space with his presence, his stories, his questions, his requests. BT stumped in on a plastic leg and made his points, or point, by waving his bright shiny hook under my nose.

I thought he resembled some modern day pirate more than anything else.

He had worked in Hal Moore's brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) beginning in December of 1965 shortly after the Ia Drang battles that we wrote about in our book.

He loved Hal Moore; he LOVED the 1st Cavalry Division; he REALLY LOVED being a soldier; and he was clearly prepared to add me to the long list of people for whom he had great affection....and visited with great demands.

BT began coming to our annual Veterans Day week reunions of the Ia Drang veterans. He fit right in the fellowship.

He told me the story of his remarkable friendship with and love for Captain Sam Bird, a fine, fine Infantry Company commander for whom he worked that first year in Vietnam . Sam was the tall Army captain who commanded the honor guard around the casket of President John F. Kennedy as he lay in state in the Capitol rotunda. Shortly after BT finished his tour and went home his good friend Sam was blown up by an enemy mine and suffered terrible wounds that left him forever in extreme pain. BT visited Sam as often as he could....not knowing then that Sam's fate would be his own shortly.

BT was a whirlwind kind of friend. He would call up at odd hours to talk of his latest passion and latest project, whether it was reforming California 's juvenile justice and detention system or rounding up money for his favorite cause, sheltering and protecting battered women.

He filled my mailbox with BT Action Orders---little squares of note paper covered with a damn near indecipherable scribble: “Send this guy a copy of We Were Soldiers Once!” or “Call this guy and explain to him why that battle was so important in the history of our war in Vietnam.”

Those BT-grams would stack up in my in box until I began feeling guilty and pulled them out and dealt with all of them in a busy afternoon. Then immediately new ones began arriving and piling up.

BT gave me the gift of any number of wonderful friends....from school days, from Army days, from law school days, from BT the politician days. He rounded us all up and dragged us into BT World, willing or not.

In time I could not even remember that there had been a time when BT was not a best friend. We all looked forward to seeing him at those Veterans Day reunions in DC.

It was during one of those reunions that BT fell ill; when his enthusiasms and non-stop pace caught up with him and soon stilled a great heart.

I wept bitter tears when friends from across the country began calling or emailing me with the news that BT Collins had crossed the river, bound for that sylvan glade reserved for departed Cavalrymen....a fine old canteen called Fiddlers Green where there's shade and whiskey aplenty as the troopers watch the Infantry and Engineers and Cannon cockers march past on the road to Hell with no such resting place for them.

I poked around my In Box till I found the last batch of BT Action Orders and, one by one, I carried out my instructions.

I envy all of you who knew BT from your days as schoolboys together....who had his friendship for a whole lifetime.....and I count myself lucky indeed to have had even a few years of the pleasure of his company.

There aren't many friends like BT who cross our paths and bless our lives and we are among the most fortunate of men for having known and loved him.

I hope the good Fathers--and the poets--are right and we will see BT again in Fiddlers Green, halfway down the road to Hell. I would rather sit around there listening to his stories and outrageous plans than spend eternity listening to a bunch of harp music and wings flapping anyway.

Joseph L. Galloway,
Friend of Brian Thomas (BT) Collins

• Vietnam War correspondent, three tours of duty for UPI
• In 1998, Galloway received a Bronze Star with V for rescuing wounded soldiers under fire in the la Drang Valley of Vietnam in November, 1965
• Along with Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore, Galloway co-authored a detailed account of those experiences in the best-selling 1992 book, We Were Soldiers Once ... And Young
• Joseph Galloway author 2008 - We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam

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Mail letters and checks to:

Archbishop Stepinac High School
Attn: Paul Thomas
950 Mamaroneck Ave.  ●  White Plains, NY 10605

Please make checks payable to: "Stepinac HS Foundation-BT Collins"

Telephone 1-914-946-4800  ●  Email: pthomas@stepinac.org