[Vision2020] D-Day, Ia Drang survivor Plumley dies at 92

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of the Army Times.

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D-Day, Ia Drang survivor Plumley dies at 92; Three-Generation Legend

Basil L. Plumley, a renowned career sol­dier whose exploits as an Army infantryman were portrayed in a book and the movie “We Were Soldiers,” died Oct. 10 at 92 — an age his friends are amazed that he lived to see.

Plumley fought in World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam and was awarded a medal for making five parachute jumps into combat.

Friends said Plumley, a retired command sergeant major, never told war stories and was known to hang up on people who called to interview him. Still, he was near legendary in the Army and gained more widespread fame through a 1992 Vietnam War book that was the basis for the 2002 movie starring Mel Gibson. Actor Sam Elliott played Plumley in the film.

Plumley didn’t need a Hollywood portrayal to be revered among soldiers, said Greg Camp, a retired Army colonel and former chief of staff at Fort Benning who befriended Plumley in his later years.

“He’s iconic in military circles,” Camp said. “Among people who have been in the military, he’s beyond what a movie star would be. ... His legend permeates three generations of soldiers.” A native of Shady Spring, W.Va., Plumley enlisted in the Army in 1942 and ended up serving 32 years in uniform. In World War II, he fought in the Allied invasion of Italy at Salerno and the D-Day invasion at Nor­mandy. He later fought with the 187th Air­borne Infantry Regiment in Korea. In Viet­nam, Plumley served as sergeant major in 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment.

“That puts him in the rarest of clubs,” said journalist Joseph L. Galloway, who met Plum­ley while covering the Vietnam War for United Press International and remained lifelong friends with him. “To be combat infantry in those three wars, in the battles he participated in, and to have survived — that is miraculous.” It was during Vietnam in November 1965 that Plumley served in the Battle of Ia Drang, the first major engagement between the U.S. Army and North Vietnamese forces. That bat­tle was the basis for the book “We Were Sol­diers Once ... And Young,” written nearly three decades later by Galloway and retired Lt. Gen. Hal G. Moore, who had been Plum­ley’s battalion commander in Vietnam.

Plumley retired with the rank of command sergeant major in 1974 at Fort Benning, Ga., his last duty station.

Debbie Kimble, Plumley’s daughter, said her father died from cancer after spending about nine days at a hospice in Columbus, Ga. Although the illness seemed to strike suddenly, Kimble said Plumley’s health had been declining since his wife of 63 years, Deurice, died May 28.


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Rest well, sergeant-major.
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"If we cannot do him honor while he's here to hear the praise,
Then at least let's give him homage at the ending of his days.
Perhaps just a simple headline in a paper that would say,
Our Country is in mourning, for a soldier died today."

- From "Just a Common Soldier" by Lawrence Vaincourt
 


 
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