Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds Congressional Gold Medal Act

This bill, introduced in the Senate as S. 262, would create a process to award a Congressional Gold Medal posthumously to Master Sergeant Roderick “Roddie” Edmonds for extraordinary courage shown during World War II. Edmonds, a U.S. Army master sergeant captured at the Battle of the Bulge, famously refused to identify Jewish-American soldiers under his command, telling a German officer, “We are all Jews here,” and saving roughly 200 men from Nazi segregation and possible execution. The bill codifies the congressional presentation of the medal, design work by the Treasury, and the ultimate disposition of the medal to Edmonds’s family or next of kin. It also allows for bronze duplicates to be struck and sold to recoup costs, with proceeds returning to the Mint’s Public Enterprise Fund. The findings section provides historical background, including Edmonds’s recognition as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. The measure was introduced in the Senate by Senators Blackburn and Schatz on January 27, 2025, and sent to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. It frames Edmonds’s actions within the broader context of World War II and Holocaust remembrance and notes the upcoming 80th anniversary of the war’s end and the 40th anniversary of Edmonds’s death.