Push for Congressional Gold Medal for Rodrick "Roddie" Edmonds continues | Georgiana Vines

While Congress was successful this term in approving Congressional Gold Medals for Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss, a Knoxville soldier among 13 U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan, and law enforcement officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, legislation to award posthumously the same medal to Knoxville native Master Sgt. Rodrick "Roddie" Edmonds did not make it through. He helped save Jewish American soldiers in World War II.

The Rev. Chris Edmonds, the hero’s son in Maryville, said he, his family “and millions of Americans” who know his dad’s story are disappointed. Sgt. Edmonds refused to identify Jewish servicemen to Nazi soldiers in a German prisoner-of-war camp, Stalag IXA.

“Dad did what's right for his Jewish friends, for God and for humanity. It's way past time for our national leaders to do what's right for dad and America,” he said in a statement Thursday to this columnist.

Edmonds’ family and supporters are not deterred, however. Rachel Partlow, staffer to U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Knoxville, said he will sponsor legislation to make the award to Edmonds in the next session.

Chip Rayman, immediate past president of the Knoxville Jewish Alliance, is helping the family try to get a mural of Roddie Edmonds on a building in the downtown area or adjacent to it. Rayman said the new owner of the Knoxville Hyatt, Beverly Hills-based billionaire Neil Kadisha, is Jewish, and he and Chris Edmonds are hopeful Kadisha might be interested since he wants to have some kind of design on the building that faces downtown.

Artists 4 Israel, an international organization that works to prevent the spread of anti-Israel bigotry through art, has been contacted about doing the mural, Rayman said.

In addition, the family would like a statue of Sgt. Edmonds in Centennial Park in Nashville, which would require state legislation. Chris Edmonds said he is working with legislators on getting the approval. The Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation has pledged $20,000 toward the statue. That group also supported the marker on Market Street behind the East Tennessee History Center that recognizes Sgt. Edmonds, and its founder, Jerry Klinger, was among the speakers at the ceremony in August 2021.

Roddie Edmonds was a noncommissioned officer in charge of the camp after being captured by Nazi forces. He was an evangelical Christian who lived in the West Haven area of Knoxville after the war and died in 1985. The story on his heroics really became known only after his death, from his diaries and follow-up his son had with survivors.

Sgt. Edmonds was recognized posthumously in 2015 as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem - The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. A ceremony in 2016 at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., was attended by then-President Barack Obama, and Chris Edmonds, the former minister of Piney Grove Baptist Church in Maryville, accepted the Righteous medal and certificate of honor.

The entire Tennessee delegation has gotten behind the Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds Congressional Gold Medal Act, with Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn sponsoring the legislation in the upper chamber this session. Because of activity with end-of the-session legislation, including appropriations bills, her office was still working on next year’s priorities, a spokesperson said, so it could not be determined if she would sponsor the act again.

Burchett’s predecessor, John J. Duncan Jr., also had introduced legislation in the House of Representatives that would provide the gold medal to Sgt. Edmonds. The House will require 270 sponsors and the Senate 60 for the act to become law.

The Congressional Gold Medal posthumously awarded to Sgt. Knauss, a Gibbs High School graduate, was made possible through legislation sponsored by Michigan Republican Rep. Lisa McClain. Thirteen service members died and 18 others were wounded in a terrorist bombing at the Kabul airport as armed forces evacuated tens of thousands of people after the national government fell to the Taliban in August 2021.

On Dec. 6, gold medals were awarded to U.S. Capitol Police and those who protected the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after they fought supporters of then-President Donald Trump in a bloody attack to stop the certification of the election of Democrat Joe Biden as president. The Tennessee congressional delegation supported these medals.

An Associated Press story on the presentation of the medals by Democratic and Republican leaders in the rotunda of the Capitol said the awards had been handed out by the legislative branch since 1776. Previous recipients include first president George Washington, Sir Winston Churchill, actor Bob Hope and poet Robert Frost.

∎ COVID MANDATE BEING RESCINDED: U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., is being credited with the removal of a requirement for service members to get a COVID-19 vaccinations as part of a nearly $858 billion bill for national defense. To win bipartisan support for the bill, Democrats had to agree to Republican demands to scrap the requirement, despite Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin voicing support to keep the mandate in effect.

Blackburn’s office put out a release with comments from other senators, news commentators and others who acknowledged her efforts. Among them was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who said, “Thanks to leadership from our colleague Senator Blackburn, among others, this NDAA will repeal the President’s military vaccine mandate — a policy which this Democratic Administration had stubbornly clung to even as it has clearly undermined readiness and hurt retention.”

∎ LAST TVA NOMINEE UPDATE: President Joe Biden’s nomination of Beth Pritchard Geer of Brentwood was approved 11-9 by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to be on the Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors. Sen. Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, voted with the Democrats in support at a Nov. 29 meeting. Five other nominees for the nine-member TVA board cleared the committee Sept. 29.

New members are needed on the board for it to have a quorum after Dec. 31. Geer is chief of staff to former Vice President Al Gore.

∎ NEW YOUTH CIVICS PROGRAM: The Knox County Commission is launching a Junior Commission youth civics education program to encourage a more engaged and informed citizens in the future. The program is open to high school juniors and seniors in a full-time public, private, parochial or accredited homeschool program in Knox County.

Each of Knox County’s 11 county commissioners will select one student for the inaugural class. Additional information and the application portal can be found at: www.knoxcounty.org/juniorcommission. No applications will be accepted via phone, email or by mail.

The program was proposed by Commissioner Larsen Jay. For more information, contact Jay at larsen.jay@knoxcounty.org or 865-224-3736.

Georgiana Vines is retired News Sentinel associate editor. She may be reached at gvpolitics@hotmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Georgiana Vines: Effort to award Gold Medal to WWII hero continues