17. “Old Iron Jaw” in Vietnam
By 1965, Basil Plumley was Sergeant Major of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore, when his unit ran into and was surrounded by two North Vietnamese regiments. In the ensuing Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, Plumley shone. At one point, when he was surrounded by enemy soldiers, he pulled out his .45, hollered to his soldiers “Gentlemen, prepare to defend yourselves,” and rallied them into beating off the foe. His commander praised him to the skies, as an outstanding leader and NCO.
After 32 years in uniform, Plumley retired as a Command Sergeant Major in 1974, by which point he had become an Army legend. He gained wider fame with the 1992 publication of Hal Moore’s We Were Soldiers Once… And Young, about the battle of Ia Drang Valley, in which Plumley was prominently featured. His legend grew even more when the book was adapted by Mel Gibson into a movie in 2002, in which Plumley was portrayed masterfully by Sam Elliot. Command Sergeant Major Basil Plumley passed away in 2012, in Columbus, Georgia.