Jerusalem honors GI for saving Jewish POWs

The Nazi soldiers made their orders very clear: Jewish-American prisoners of war were to be separated from their fellow brothers in arms and sent to an uncertain fate.

But Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds would have none of that. As the highest-ranking noncommissioned officer held in the German POW camp, he ordered more than 1,000 US captives to step forward with him and brazenly pronounce: "We are all Jews here."

He would not waver, even with a pistol to his head, and his captors eventually backed down.