‘Make it to the Morning’
As Chuck Plumley sat in the doorway of of a vintage UH-1H helicopter used in Vietnam, preparing to parachute into a small clearing stamp of cleared land 1,500 feet below his feet in the North Georgia mountains, he was scared.
“My excitement and apprehension were turning into fear,” Plumley writes in his book, “Ranger School: Make it to the Morning,” published last year. And for good reason. Even after his canopy unfurled, bringing a wave of relief, he realized he was going to miss the drop zone and land in the surrounding trees.
“I have never impacted on a football field like I impacted then,” he said in the chapter titled ‘Treeborne, Not Airborne.’ “Loud noise, a freight train roaring past me, rushing wind, cracking of branches and whipping of pine needles tore at me as I ripped and careened out of control. Slam! I came to a complete, shocking stop. Sudden silence.”
Although stuck 30 feet above the ground, Plumley realized his good fortune of landing in a pine tree when he saw a huge oak not far from his position.
“I could have suffered serious injury or worse if I had crashed into the leafless oaks … God was looking out for me,” he believes.
The chapter is just one of many that detail the excitement, as well as profound misery, of enduring Ranger School to get the coveted ‘Ranger Tab’ on his Army uniform. Part of the book’s title is explained by the advice of a Ranger who went to the school before him: when you’re cold, wet, miserable, hungry and sleepless at night, don’t quit — just make it to the morning.
Since Plumley went through the nine-week Ranger School in 1991, he was asked why he didn’t publish his book until 2025.
“It was always in the back of my mind and never left,” said the 1983 Gilmer High School graduate.” What finally got me over the hump and very serious about it was early last year when my pastor came to church one day and handed me a book — he had written a book. So the big thing became how do you publish a book?”
He was put in touch with a fellow church member and successful author who pledged her help if he would just finish his own book.
“That’s when I got seriously started, in January of last year, and for a year I was consumed with it,” he said. “Every waking moment I was working on the book.”
It helped that during Ranger School he had asked his wife, Kathy, to save the letters he wrote to her, thinking in the back of his mind “this might make a good story some day.”
“So I started journaling more than I was writing letters to her,” he added. “It was fun doing (the writing), and a few stories came back to me I’d forgotten about.”
Intriguing passages
Plumley was asked about some passages in the book, such as “Ranger School hasn’t changed much, (it’s) about learning the limits of your suffering and pushing through it to learn how much you’re capable of.”
Has that affected you through the years?
“Definitely, it’s the hardest physical and mental thing I’ve ever been through in my life,” he replied. “I went into it a little bit clueless, because at that time (pre-Internet, 1991) you couldn’t research a lot. You could talk to people but talking to people isn’t the same thing as doing it. I was young, I was fit, but a lot of people who are young and fit didn’t make it. I just had something in me that said I couldn’t quit, I had to keep going.
“But it was absolutely miserable,” he added with a laugh.
Another passage talks about “leaders who set the standard, enforce it and can think and act with clarity when everything around them is chaos.” How has what you learned in Ranger School helped your career?
“In one way, it’s like no matter what’s going on the leader has to stay calm, focused and keep moving forward, regardless, toward whatever the goal is,” he said. “There’s never been a day any harder than I experienced during those 68 days I was there. So if I’m going through a difficult day, I can always think back to when it was worse.
“Success sometimes means keeping your eyes open for one more step, one more hour. I think it ties into the whole theme of making it to the morning, because when my friend mentioned to me about times you’d want to quit, you just have to think don’t quit and just keep going.”
“Ranger School: Make it to the Morning” is a must-read primer for those who believe they’re a candidate for one of the world’s premier specialized military units. Plumley realizes he was fortunate to get through the school without injury, some of which could put a stop to a potential Ranger’s candidacy, and others which force the recruit to “recycle” and repeat training phases.
“Years later I discovered that I broke a bone in my hand and had to have surgery on it, but at the time — and everyone was hurting in some way — it was the bigger injuries that would keep someone from going on,” he said of his training. “That was where luck came into play, not getting cellulitis or something that would keep you from continuing.”
He also credits his faith for gutting it out. A scripture verse on the book’s cover cites, Psalm 30:5, “Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”
“I was in (the Army) six years, peacetime mostly, and never went overseas,” he said. “Those who went to combat, I’ve got the greatest respect for them and honor them, and also those who made it a career.”
How to get the book
“Ranger School” can be ordered by typing into a search engine “Chuck Plumley, Make it to the Morning” and a link to Amazon will pop up. An Amazon review states, “Timely. Necessary. Unforgettable. A raw, unflinching look inside the U.S. Army Ranger School as it celebrates 75 years of forging the military's most resilient leaders. When First Lieutenant Chuck Plumley volunteered for Ranger School, one of the military's most grueling and unforgiving courses, the challenge was deeply personal.
“The course's Mountain Phase sat just 28 miles from his childhood home and 12 miles from his college campus. He believed his familiarity with the North Georgia mountains would give him an edge. He was wrong. This book offers a comprehensive and candid look at the physical, mental and emotional crucible that creates the Army's elite combat leaders.”
Plumley and his wife, Kathy have four children: Logan, Caleb, Mariella and Joah. They live in Madison, Ga., where he works in the pharmaceuticals business.
GHS teacher ‘a mentor’
Chuck Plumley said his English teacher at Gilmer High School, Linda Whitaker Wright, served as an early mentor and “true genesis” in what would become his first book.
“I wanted to acknowledge her because that’s the first time in my life – ninth or tenth grade – where I was required to keep a journal and write about whatever, and that’s the first time I’d ever done that,” he recalled. “I enjoyed it, but what I enjoyed the most was when I’d turn it in and she’d write comments back and it was like encouragement. I attribute it all back to that class with her, and I wanted to point that out in the book.”
Wright noted, “Once in a great while, if you're lucky, you will have a student like Chuck Plumley.”
“(He) sits near the back of the room soaking everything in and every now and then asks a legitimate question,” she said. “When I taught Chuck I was taking a graduate class about new trends in high school writing classes — ‘stream of consciousness’ writing — that was being used to encourage writers to put ideas directly on paper without worrying about grammar and composition ... None of the journals I had students write in class were ever graded. But they were always read by me with words of encouragement all the way.”
Wright said she had “no idea” her former student had mentioned her in the forward of his book until his sister mentioned it.
“I am thrilled that I had some influence in Chuck becoming a writer,” she said. “I hope he continues to write.”