Unnecessary Risks: A Memoir of Adventure

Tim Plummer didn’t need to seek adventure—adventure went looking for him.

It is 1993, two years since the Iron Curtain fell. Lieutenant Colonel Tim Plummer is headed to Russia. He isn’t going to Russia on a military mission, however. He is hoping to reunite with an old friend—the Soviet officer who saved his life in the Sinai Desert during the cease-fire that followed the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

The incredible true story behind his friendship with the Soviet officer is just one of the remarkable adventures Tim Plummer experienced during his military career. His “never back down” spirit will inspire readers as he talks about crossing Siberia during the height of the Cold War, getting trapped in a coal mine collapse in East Ukraine, sailing treacherous waters to Tasmania, climbing the Cheops pyramid after midnight, and other amazing feats. His assignments frequently took him away from his wife, Kathleen, and their four children; and Unnecessary Risks: A Memoir of Adventureis written for them and those who choose to join him on his travels.

Plummer’s adventurous nature is infectious, and readers everywhere will thrill at the chance to travel alongside him.

Tim Plummer graduated from West Point in 1959. His subsequent twenty-year Army career included travel throughout the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War. He served as a cease-fire observer with Soviet officers during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Plummer returned to Moscow to reunite with the Soviet comrade who had saved his life.

Plummer has also served in Vietnam, Thailand, and Australia.

Plummer received a master’s degree from the University of Illinois and completed the Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program. He was lead author of Landscape Atlas of the USSR, published by West Point. He retired from the US Army after a battalion command in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

Plummer lives in the Borough of Rose Valley, Pennsylvania, where he is a two-term mayor as well as founder and president of a non-profit conservancy dedicated to the betterment of his community. He is a daily lap swimmer and an avid fly fisherman.