27. This Man Fought for America in Three Wars
Command Sergeant Major Basil Plumley was a heroic character ready-made for Hollywood. Fittingly, when his character was depicted in 2002’s We Were Soldiers, it stole every scene it appeared in. The son of a West Virginia coal miner, Plumley enlisted in the US Army during WWII in 1942. He first saw combat in 1943, during the invasion of Italy, and on D-Day as a glider man in the 82nd Airborne Division. His next glider assault came during Operation Market Garden in September, 1944, during which he earned a Purple Heart after getting shot in the hand.
Plumley made four combat jumps in WWII and another one in the Korean War with the 187th Airborne Infantry Regiment. In that conflict, his fights included the battles of Old Baldy and Pork Chop Hill. As Plumley rose through the ranks, he earned a reputation as a gruff and no-nonsense sergeant. A true believer in tough training and discipline, Plumley earned the nickname “Old Iron Jaw”. He was not a hardass just for the sake of being a hardass: experience had taught him that soldiers had to be prepared for the horrors of combat. The hard training and discipline served him and his men well in Vietnam.