Basil L. Plumley was a career soldier and airborne combat infantryman in the United States Army who eventually achieved the rank of Command Sergeant Major, starting off as a private. He is most famous for his actions as Sergeant Major of the US Army’s 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, at the Battle of Ia Drang in Vietnam, 1965.
Lieutenant General Hal Moore, who, as a lieutenant colonel, was Plumley’s battalion commander during the Battle of Ia Drang, praised Plumley as an outstanding NCO and leader in the 1992 book about this battle, We Were Soldiers Once…And Young. The book was the basis for the 2002 film We Were Soldiers, in which Plumley was played by actor Sam Elliott. Plumley was known affectionately by his soldiers as “Old Iron Jaw”.
Plumey in Vietnam
The Battle of Ia Drang was the first major battle between regulars of the United States Army and regulars of the People’s Army of Vietnam of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The two-part battle took place between November 14 and November 18, 1965, at two landing zones (LZs) in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam near the Ia Drang river.
The initial North Vietnamese assault against the landing 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry at LZ X-Ray was repulsed after two days and nights of heavy fighting on November 14–16, with the Americans inflicting heavy losses on North Vietnamese regulars and Viet Cong guerrillas. In a follow-up surprise attack on November 17, the North Vietnamese overran the marching column of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry (1st Battalion’s sister unit) near LZ Albany in the most successful ambush against U.S. forces of the war. Both sides suffered heavy casualties; the U.S. had nearly 250 soldiers killed but claimed to have counted about 1,000 North Vietnamese bodies on the battlefield and estimated that more were killed by air strikes and artillery.
Plumey in Vietnam
According to Fox News in the 2002 film version, Mel Gibson played Moore and Elliott played Plumley. Galloway said several of Elliott’s gruff one-liners in the movie were things Plumley actually said, such as the scene in which a soldier tells the sergeant major good morning and is told: “Who made you the (expletive) weather man?”
“Sam Elliott underplayed him. He was actually tougher than that,” Galloway said. “He was gruff, monosyllabic, an absolute terror when it came to enforcing standards of training.”
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CSM(R) Basil L. Plumley at the United States Military Academy at West Point on 10 May 2010 via Wikipedia
Plumley enlisted in the US Army as a private on March 31, 1942. He was a member of the 82nd Airborne Division, with which he made four combat jumps at Sicily, Salerno, Normandy (D-Day) and the Netherlands (Operation Market Garden). He was awarded multiple decorations and wore Master Parachutist wings with a gold star signifying those five combat jumps.
Plumley went on to make one combat jump in Korea with the 187th Airborne Infantry Regiment. He retired as a command sergeant major on December 31, 1974, having been awarded 28 different personal, unit, campaign and service awards and decorations (40 total) in almost 33 years of military service, spanning World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
The burial of Basil Plumley, attended by Sam Elliot, who portrayed Plumley in the movie “We Were Soldiers,”
After his retirement, he worked 15 more years for the army as a civilian in administration at Martin Army Community Hospital and at various medical clinics around Fort Benning (Fort Benning, Georgia), retiring again in 1990.
Basil Plumley died of cancer after nine days in Columbus Hospice (Columbus, Georgia), on October 10, 2012.
Video: General Hal Moore and Sergeant Major Plumley
General Hal Moore and Sergeant Major Plumley at Westpoint on May 10, 2010. Moore then led the 1st Battalion, 7th U.S. Cavalry, in the famous battle at Ia Drang, along with Sergeant Major Basil Plumley.
Plumley Quote from We Were Soldiers
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