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Former U.S. Postal Workers Get Medal of Honor, Will Appear On Stamp Sheet

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You may have heard on the news late last week that the Medal of Honor was bestowed 24 U.S. soldiers who had been overlooked for racial and religious reasons. What you may not have heard is that of the three honorees still living, two are former postal workers.

Both served in the Vietnam War, and USPS press rep Mark Saunders told them that, when the Vietnam War Medal of Honor stamps are issued (the World War II set was issued last year, Korean War is later this year, so our guess for Vietnam is 2015), their pictures will be included in the selvage (margin area) of the stamp sheet. Mark says they were “VERY excited” by this.

Below is Mark’s press release and his photos of the two men at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.

Two Former Postal Employees Receive Medal of Honor
Santiago Erevia and Jose Rodela to be honored by U.S. Postal Service on Upcoming Stamp Sheet

ereviaWASHINGTON — Only a few close friends who have known Santiago Erevia (right) during his 32-year Postal Service career are aware that the San Antonio letter carrier was decorated for his extraordinary heroism in Vietnam. Nearly 45 years later, President Obama shared his story with the world today when he upgraded Erevia’s Distinguished Service Cross to the Medal of Honor for his gallantry, intrepidity and heroism above and beyond the call of duty.

rodela1Jose Rodela (left), who served as a Mail Handler for the Postal Service during the late 1970s, also had his Distinguished Service Cross upgraded to the Medal of Honor by President Obama today.

“Nearly 20 percent of our workforce has served our country in the military,” said Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe. “Clearly 100 percent of our postal family is proud to learn of this long overdue honor. We salute you Santiago and Jose, as well as all who have unselfishly served our nation at great personal sacrifice in the military.”

A radio telephone operator in the 101st Airborne Division, Specialist Fourth Class Erevia was participating in a search-and-clear mission in central Vietnam in 1969 when his platoon came under fire. Erevia crawled from one wounded soldier to another to provide aid, then charged and destroyed several enemy bunkers while under hostile fire.

Erevia said receiving the Medal of Honor “is bitter sweet after so much time has passed, but I am elated by this distinction. It is truly a great honor.”

Erevia followed the path of many veterans upon leaving the armed forces — continuing to serve the nation by joining the Postal Service. Six months after returning home in 1970, Erevia began his postal career as a San Antonio letter carrier and for the last seven years of his career served at San Antonio’s Frank Tejeda Station.

rodela2Sergeant First Class Jose Rodela’s courageous actions took place while serving as the company commander, Detachment B-36, Company A, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces during combat in Phuoc Long Province, Sept. 1, 1969. Rodela commanded his company through 18 hours of continuous combat while his battalion was attacked, taking heavy casualties. Throughout the battle, in spite of his wounds, Rodela repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire to attend to the fallen and eliminate an enemy rocket position. (He is shown at right creating a “rubbing” at the Memorial, surrounded by members of his family.)

Rodela retired from the Army in 1975 and worked for the Postal Service in Corpus Christi and San Antonio, TX, between 1976 to 1978 before joining the Air Force. He currently resides in San Antonio.

Medal of Honor Forever Stamps
Erevia and Rodela bring the total number of living former postal employees/Medal of Honor recipients to three.George Sakato, a World War II Distinguished Service Cross recipient from Denver, CO, was upgraded to receive the Medal in 2000. Sakato’s image is featured on the World War II Medal of Honor Forever stamp sheet issued Veterans’ Day 2013. The sheet lists all 464 World War II Medal of Honor recipients and includes photographs of recipients who were alive at the time of the stamp proposal. The Korean War Medal of Honor Forever stamps will be issued Veterans’ Day 2014. The Vietnam Medal of Honor stamps, bearing photographs of living recipients, will be issued at a yet-to-be announced date.

Congressional Review of Discrimination
Today’s Medal of Honor presentation to Erevia, Rodela and 22 other veterans culminates a 12-year Pentagon review ordered by Congress in 2002, through the Defense Authorization Act, which called for a review of Jewish-American and Hispanic-American veteran war records from World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, to ensure those deserving the Medal of Honor were not denied because of prejudice.

President Obama will award the 24 Army veterans the Medal of Honor in recognition of their valor during major combat operations in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Each of these soldiers’ bravery was previously recognized by award of the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second highest military award. The award will be upgraded to the Medal of Honor.

I Was Collecting Stamps That Day

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copy-copy-lloydblog_title3.gifMy local paper has been running a “Where were you on November 22, 1963” features this month. Like most of us, I know exactly where I was, and it has a philatelic connection, but I’ve always had misgivings about it. But, after reflecting on the significance of the date, and realkennedy1246aizing that we can’t hold a 10-year-old boy to adult standards, I’ll tell the story.

Every Friday, Mrs. Meade, our 5th grade teacher at Roosevelt School in Ossining, NY, let us have the afternoon as “hobby time.” For myself and three or four of my friends, that meant stamp collecting.

In fact, I believe Mrs. Meade gave me my first first day cover; certainly, my first foreign FDC. I think I still have it somewhere.

Few fifth-graders, then or now, are into exhibiting, so it’s not as if we were going to show each other great rarities and scholarly philatelic research, kennedy1246band, just like adults then and now, our weekly “hobby time” stamp sessions had become largely buy/sell/trade sessions. Mrs. Meade wasn’t happy about that.

That afternoon, she came into the classroom and said hobby time had been canceled, because the president had been shot. I didn’t believe her. After all, no one shoots presidents. In fact, I’m not sure up to that point I knew of anyone who had been shot, much less killed.

So I figured she’d concocted this unbelievable, ridiculous excuse just because she was upset about our stamp swaps. Remember, I was 10 years old.

We returned to our desks and sat there in silence for the rest of the afternoon. I think some of the other teachers came into the room and talked with Mrs. Meade in whispers.

UC37We never had hobby time again, reinforcing my suspicion.

We also didn’t have school the following Monday, of course. I remember walking into our living room, and finding my mother weeping as she watched the funeral on television. “Why are you crying, Mommy? You’re a Republican.”

I was 10 years old.