<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Courtesy of the Army Times.</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">-------------------------------------</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></div><div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="subtitle" style="font-weight: bold; ">D-Day, Ia Drang survivor</span><span class="subtitle" style="font-weight: bold; "> Plumley dies at 92; Three-Generation Legend</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-align: -webkit-auto; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="abody" style="text-align: justify; "><b><br></b></span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-align: -webkit-auto; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="abody" style="text-align: justify; "><b>B</b>asil 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</span><span class="abody" style="text-align: justify; "> amazed that he lived to see.</span></span></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); "><span class="abody" style="text-align: justify; "><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Plumley fought in World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam and was awarded a medal for making five parachute jumps into combat.</div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">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.</div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">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.</div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">“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.</div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span class="abody">“That puts him in the rarest of clubs,” said</span><span class="abody"> 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.</span></div></span><span class="abody" style="text-align: justify; "><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Plumley retired with the rank of command sergeant major in 1974 at Fort Benning, Ga., his last duty station.</div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto; ">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.</div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto; "><br></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto; "><img src="cid:B349B5AB-A8FE-4682-A043-A24F7A216F5D" alt="image.jpeg" id="B349B5AB-A8FE-4682-A043-A24F7A216F5D" width="728" height="582"></div></span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">-------------------------------------</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Rest well, sergeant-major.</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div> </div><div><div>Tom Hansen</div><div>Moscow, Idaho</div><div><br></div><div><div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); "><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">"If we cannot do him honor while he's here to hear the praise,</b></div><div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); "><b>Then at least let's give him homage at the ending of his days.</b></div><div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); "><b>Perhaps just a simple headline in a paper that would say,</b></div><div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); "><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">Our Country is in mourning, for a soldier died today."</b></div><div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); "><b><br></b></div><div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); "><b>- From "Just a Common Soldier" by Lawrence Vaincourt</b></div></div><div> </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div> </div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>