On Veterans Day: The Courage to Stand Together

Today, our country pauses to thank the men and women who have worn its uniform. The day began in 1919 as Armistice Day, marking the end of the fighting in World War I, and in 1926, Congress called for it to be observed every year. On June 1, 1954, President Eisenhower signed the law renaming it Veterans Day to honor Americans who served in every war. This year, the day carries extra weight as our nation marks its 250th year. Throughout those years, one simple truth has persisted: our country’s greatness is built on the courage and sacrifice of those who served.

Finding the right words to honor the debt we owe our veterans is not easy, so I want to share a story I learned this year about Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds of Knoxville, Tennessee. Edmonds served with the 106th Infantry Division and was captured during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. At Stalag IXA, a German prison camp, he became the senior noncommissioned officer responsible for more than 1,000 American soldiers.

In January 1945, the camp commandant ordered the Jewish prisoners to report the next morning. Every man in that camp understood what the order meant, so Edmonds told his men to fall out together instead. When the commandant saw the entire formation, he insisted they could not all be Jews. Edmonds answered him: “We are all Jews here.”

The commandant pressed his pistol to Edmonds’s head and demanded that he identify the Jewish soldiers. Edmonds did not move and told the commandant: “If you shoot me, you’ll have to kill all of us.”

The commandant backed down, and approximately 200 Jewish American soldiers were spared that day because a Methodist sergeant from Tennessee refused to let them stand alone. Edmonds never told his family what he did. After he died in 1985, his son Chris, a pastor, found only cryptic clues in his father’s wartime diaries and later learned the full story from men who had been prisoners with him. In 2015, Yad Vashem recognized Roddie Edmonds as Righteous Among the Nations, the first American soldier to receive that honor.

More than eighty years later, Edmonds’s five words still ask something of each of us. Edmonds had every reason to stay silent, and he chose to stand with his men instead. As America turns 250, I cannot think of a better picture of who we are at our best.

To every veteran, and to the families who served alongside you, thank you. Your courage, sacrifice, and dedication to our country have made this world a better place.

Todd