Sergeant Major Basil L. Plumley

Perhaps not yet a household name like Winston Churchill, but some day.

He was a soldier, written about in the book "We Were Soldiers Once…And Young", and portrayed in the movie  "We were soldiers". He was 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.

He parachuted into 4 major battles as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division, with which he made combat jumps at Sicily, Salerno, Normandy (D-Day) and the Netherlands (Operation Market Garden). He went on to make one more combat jump in Korea with the 187th Airborne Infantry Regiment.

He was awarded multiple decorations and wore Master Parachutist wings with a gold star signifying those five combat jumps.

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 his battalion commander during the Battle of Ia Drang, and praised him as an outstanding NCO and leader.

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.

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.

Sergeant Major Basil L. Plumley – Veteran of 3 Wars died, on October 10, 2012.