‘We Were Soldiers’ legend’s record under review for unearned awards, report says

The late Command Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley, a legend in the U.S. Army and famously depicted by the actor Sam Elliott in the Vietnam War movie “We Were Soldiers,” is under review by Army officials for having worn unauthorized combat and valor awards, according to a report on Military.com.

Plumley died of cancer in 2012, but Brian Siddall, an independent researcher who has devoted years of his life researching Plumley’s service records and the exploits of other service members in World War II, uncovered discrepancies between Plumley’s official documents and widely reported accounts of his service.

In the 1992 book “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young,” co-written by Joe Galloway and retired Lt. Gen Hal Moore and on which the movie is based, Plumley is a central character and is introduced as a soldier who had made four combat jumps in World War II as well as a combat jump in the Korean War.

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Image courtesy of AP