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Heroic People Who Deserve to be Way More Famous

Khalid Elhassan March 31, 2021 36 min

A black GI and captured Germans in WWII. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

26. “Gentlemen, Prepare to Defend Yourselves“

By 1965, Basil Plumley had risen through the ranks to become Sergeant Major of the 1^st Battalion, 7^th Cavalry Regiment. The unit was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore, when it 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. Hal Moore praised him to the skies, as an outstanding leader and NCO.

After 32 years in uniform, by which point he had become an Army legend, Plumley retired as a Command Sergeant Major in 1974. He gained wider fame with the 1992 publication of Hal Moore’s We Were Soldiers Once… And Young, in which Plumley was prominently featured. His legend grew, even more, when the book was adapted by Mel Gibson into a 2002 movie, in which Plumley was portrayed masterfully by Sam Elliot. Command Sergeant Major Basil Plumley passed away in 2012, in Columbus, Georgia.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.