I 
117TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2567 
To award a Congressional Gold Medal to Master Sergeant Rodrick ‘‘Roddie’’ 
Edmonds in recognition of his heroic actions during World War II. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
APRIL 15, 2021 
Mr. BURCHETT (for himself, Mrs. HARSHBARGER, Mr. FLEISCHMANN, Mr. 
DESJARLAIS, Mr. COOPER, Mr. ROSE, Mr. GREEN of Tennessee, Mr. 
KUSTOFF, and Mr. COHEN) introduced the following bill; which was re-
ferred to the Committee on Financial Services 
A BILL 
To award a Congressional Gold Medal to Master Sergeant 
Rodrick ‘‘Roddie’’ Edmonds in recognition of his heroic 
actions during World War II. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Master Sergeant 
Roddie Edmonds Congressional Gold Medal Act’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) Rodrick W. Edmonds (in this Act referred 
to as ‘‘Roddie Edmonds’’ or ‘‘Edmonds’’) was born 
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in 1919 in South Knoxville, Tennessee, and grad-
uated from Knoxville High School in 1938. 
(2) Roddie Edmonds was a Master Sergeant in 
the United States Army and a member of the 422nd 
Infantry Regiment while serving during World War 
II. 
(3) Roddie Edmonds landed in Europe in 1944 
and fought to the border between Belgium and Ger-
many. In December of 1944, while fighting in the 
Battle of the Bulge, Edmonds was captured by Nazi 
forces and detained in Stalag IX–A, a prisoner of 
war camp in Ziegenhain, Germany. 
(4) Stalag IX–A was a site used to identify, 
segregate, and remove Jewish soldiers from the gen-
eral population of prisoners of war and many of the 
Jewish soldiers who were so removed were sent to 
labor camps or murdered. Members of the Armed 
Forces were warned of this policy and aware that 
their fellow servicemen could be at risk. 
(5) As the senior noncommissioned officer in 
Stalag IX–A, Master Sergeant Edmonds was re-
sponsible for 1,275 members of the Armed Forces at 
the camp. Approximately 1 month after the date on 
which Edmonds was detained, Edmonds was di-
rected to order the Jewish-American soldiers under 
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his command to fall out in order to separate the 
Jewish-American soldiers from their fellow prisoners. 
(6) Disregarding the orders of the Nazis, 
Roddie Edmonds commanded all of his men to fall 
out and, the following morning, all of the 1,275 
members of the Armed Forces under the command 
of Edmonds stood outside of their prison barracks. 
(7) Upon seeing the soldiers, a German officer 
angrily shouted, ‘‘They cannot all be Jews!’’, to 
which Edmonds replied, ‘‘We are all Jews here’’. 
(8) The German officer took out his pistol and 
pointed the gun at the head of Edmonds, but Ed-
monds refused to identify the Jewish soldiers. In-
stead, Edmonds responded, ‘‘According to the Gene-
va Convention, we only have to give our name, rank, 
and serial number. If you shoot me, you will have 
to shoot all of us and, after the war, you will be 
tried for war crimes’’. 
(9) The German officer turned away from Ed-
monds and the other soldiers and left the scene. The 
actions taken by Edmonds saved the lives of ap-
proximately 200 Jewish-American members of the 
Armed Forces. 
(10) Lester Tanner, a Jewish-American mem-
ber of the Armed Forces also captured during the 
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Battle of the Bulge, witnessed the incident and stat-
ed that, ‘‘There was no question in my mind, or that 
of Master Sergeant Edmonds, that the Germans 
were removing the Jewish prisoners from the general 
population at great risk to their survival. The U.S. 
Army’s standing command to its ranking officers in 
POW camps is that you resist the enemy and care 
for the safety of your men to the greatest extent 
possible. Master Sergeant Edmonds, at the risk of 
his immediate death, defied the Germans with the 
unexpected consequences that the Jewish prisoners 
were saved’’. 
(11) Edmonds survived 100 days in captivity 
and returned home after the war. Later, Edmonds 
served the United States in Korea as a member of 
the National Guard. Edmonds died in 1985, but 
never told his family or anyone else of his brave ac-
tions outside the barracks of Stalag IX–A during 
World War II. 
(12) Edmonds was posthumously recognized by 
Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance 
Center in Jerusalem, as ‘‘Righteous Among the Na-
tions’’, the first member of the Armed Forces and 
1 of only 5 people of the United States to be so rec-
ognized. Avner Shalev, Chairman of Yad Vashem, 
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announced the selection of Edmonds by saying, 
‘‘Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds seemed like an 
ordinary American soldier, but he had an extraor-
dinary sense of responsibility and dedication to his 
fellow human beings. . . . The choices and actions 
of Master Sergeant Edmonds set an example for his 
fellow American soldiers as they stood united against 
the barbaric evil of the Nazis’’. 
SEC. 3. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL. 
(a) AWARD
AUTHORIZED.—The Speaker of the 
House of Representatives and the President pro tempore 
of the Senate shall make appropriate arrangements for the 
posthumous award, on behalf of Congress, of a gold medal 
of appropriate design to Roddie Edmonds in recognition 
of his achievements and heroic actions during World War 
II. 
(b) DESIGN AND STRIKING.—For the purpose of the 
award referred to in subsection (a), the Secretary of the 
Treasury (referred to in this Act as the ‘‘Secretary’’) shall 
strike a gold medal with suitable emblems, devices, and 
inscriptions to be determined by the Secretary. 
(c) PRESENTATION AND AWARD OF MEDAL.—The 
gold medal referred to in subsection (a) shall be presented, 
and following the presentation awarded, to the next of kin 
of Roddie Edmonds. 
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