Remembering the Brave and Righteous Stand of Master Sergeant Rodrick “Roddie” Edmonds

(Master Sergeant Rodrick “Roddie” Edmonds)

Like so many of his generation, Tennessean native — Rodrick “Roddie” Edmonds — seldom spoke about his experiences during the Second World War.

Indeed, if it wasn’t for the testimony of those who said they “wouldn’t be alive if it hadn’t been for Roddie’s bravery”, very few would know much of anything about his incredible life story…

Born into a devout Methodist family on this day in 1919, young Roddie bid his beloved parents farewell in 1941, to enlist with the US Army.

(Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds (front row, second from left) photographed with his fellow NCOs in Camp Atterbury, Indiana, prior to their deployment to liberate Western Europe from the yoke of Hitler’s Germany.)

On completion of his training, he rose quickly to the rank of master sergeant and, by late 1944, had advanced from France to the Belgian Ardennes.

It was there, in December of the same year, he and his soldiers of the 106th Infantry Division — the “Golden Lions” — found themselves at the forefront of the last great German offensive in the West — “Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein” — which, as it evolved into the “Battle of the Bulge”, soon left Roddie and his troops cut off and surrounded on all sides.