JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER.
1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
LUKE 21:28-29
28 And when these things begin to come to pass,(ALL THE PROPHECY SIGNS FROM THE BIBLE) then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (RAPTURE) draweth nigh.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree,(ISRAEL) and all the trees;(ALL INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES)
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.(ISRAEL LITERALLY BECAME AND INDEPENDENT COUNTRY JUST BEFORE SUMMER IN MAY 14,1948.)
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth (ATOMIC BOMB) before them;(RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIM ARMIES AGAINST ISRAEL) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(ATOMIC BOMB AFFECT)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE
PM, Bennett meet in last-minute bid to reach outpost bill compromise-Netanyahu cabinet in standoff ahead of Monday vote on legislation that would retroactively validate illegal West Bank settlements-By Times of Israel staff December 3, 2016, 9:05 pm
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett and Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit Saturday evening, in an eleventh-hour effort to reach a compromise to the cabinet standoff over the so-called Regulation Bill ahead of Monday’s Knesset vote on the controversial legislation.The bill proposed by the national-religious Jewish Home party has been presented as a plan to avert the court-ordered December deadline to demolish the illegal outpost of Amona, and would see the government retroactively legalize other West Bank outposts built on privately-owned Palestinian land.Various versions of the Regulation Bill have passed the initial legislative hurdles in the Knesset in recent weeks despite repeated objections from Mandelblit and efforts by Netanyahu to delay the vote.According to the Ynet news website, Bennett is being pressured to agree to remove a clause that overrides the High Court of Justice’s ruling to evacuate Amona.On Saturday night, however, Bennett said no coalition compromise had been reached on the contentious issue.“Nothing has been concluded regarding the regulation of settlements in [the West Bank],” Bennett posted on Facebook. “We expect the Regulation Bill to pass in full as required by the coalition agreement.”Opposition to the Amona clause from Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon last week saw the Knesset vote on the bill pushed off to Monday.Kahlon’s 10-seat Kulanu faction has de facto veto power over legislation in the 67-seat coalition, as bills require a 61-seat majority to pass.After over a decade of legal wrangling, the High Court of Justice ruled in 2014 that the Amona outpost, near Ramallah, which was founded in 1996 and is home to some 40 families, was built on privately-owned Palestinian land and ordered it razed by December 25 of this year.The issue has galvanized pro-settlement politicians who have sought legislative ways to circumvent the court’s decision. But past proposals to grant the state the ability to seize the private land for Amona residents’ use were met with vociferous opposition of officials and political leaders. Mandelblit told lawmakers last month that such a breach of property protections would be deemed unconstitutional by the High Court of Justice. Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman have both expressed misgivings or opposition to the idea.Kahlon’s opposition to the measure has sparked frantic maneuvering in Netanyahu’s coalition. According to Knesset sources, his party opposes the bill’s article 7, that explicitly overturns the High Court of Justice verdict forbidding the expropriation of the privately-owned Palestinian land on which Amona sits.Last week, Jewish Home MK Nissan Slomiansky said that when the Regulation Bill is finally put to its first of three votes on Monday, lawmakers would take the rare step of voting on two versions of the bill at once – one that explicitly overturns the High Court of Justice’s ruling on Amona and a second that leaves Amona out of the bill’s protections – while negotiations over its final version would take place in committee after the vote.He asserted the bill now enjoys the support of “both the Knesset legal adviser and the Knesset speaker.”But legal adviser Elazar Stern later warned that the version of the bill that overturned the High Court verdict on Amona may mark a “very problematic” precedent for Israeli legislation “in that it cancels the final verdict of a court.”According to Stern, “We examined all the examples brought to the committee that seemed to offer a precedent for legislation that canceled court verdicts, and all these examples, as well as others, not only did not seek to cancel a verdict, but in fact contained the explicit caveat that they would not apply to previous verdicts.”Raoul Wootliff and Marissa Newman contributed to this report.
Gaza man arrested after crossing border into Israel-IDF apprehends unarmed Palestinian just north of security fence in Hof Ashkelon Regional Council-By Times of Israel staff December 3, 2016, 10:43 pm
A Palestinian man was arrested Saturday evening shortly after crossing into Israel from the Gaza Strip.The unarmed man was reportedly detained just north of the border fence in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council, and was taken in for questioning by the IDF.Earlier this month, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) warned Palestinians that the IDF would not hesitate to use lethal force against anyone attempting to cross into Israeli territory from the Strip.“Those who try to enter the Israeli area are risking their lives,” Maj. Gen. Yoav (Poly) Mordechai told the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency, a day after a Palestinian was killed in clashes with the Israeli army along the Gaza border.Mordechai added that Israel held the Hamas terror group which controls the Strip responsible for any potential uptick in violence near the Gaza border.
If you shoot me, you will have to shoot all of us'-Posthumous honor for US officer who saved 200 Jewish GIs from the Nazis — and never told a soul-With a Nazi pistol pointed at his head, Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds refused to reveal which of his soldiers were Jews. This week he was recognized for his bravery-By Cathryn J. Prince November 30, 2016, 3:21 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
NEW YORK — In a singular act of humanity and defiance, Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds stood up to a German commandant and saved 200 American Jewish GIs from transportation to a slave labor camp.It was 1945 and Edmonds had been a prisoner of war in Stalag IX-A, a German POW camp for less than a month. As the highest-ranking officer there, he was responsible for the camp’s 1,292 American POWs – 200 of whom were Jewish.Throughout the war, the Wehrmacht either murdered Jewish soldiers captured on the Eastern Front or sent them to extermination camps. Jewish soldiers captured on the Western Front could be sent to Berga, a slave labor camp where survival rates were dismal.Because of this policy the US military told its Jewish soldiers that if they were captured they should destroy evidence of their faith, such as dog tags, which were stamped with the letter H for Hebrew, or personal prayer books that some soldiers carried.Edmonds, who died in 1985, never spoke about the story. In fact, had it not been for his granddaughter’s college assignment many decades later, the officer’s story might have remained forever untold. But thanks to the subsequent persistence of Edmonds’ son, Pastor Chris Edmonds, the heroic story surfaced.On Monday night the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous posthumously honored Edmonds with its “Yehi Or” (Let There Be Light) Award.To understand why Edmonds never spoke about his courage — not to his wife, his children, nor to his grandchildren — is to understand something about the man himself.“He was a man of faith. He never bragged on anything but God. Well, maybe his sons sometimes,” said Edmonds in a telephone interview days before he was scheduled to accept the award on his father’s behalf at The New York Public Library.JFR chairman Harvey Schulweis also noted Edmonds’ humility.“Over the years we have worked with and honored many Holocaust survivors and their rescuers, but the story of Roddie Edmonds saving 200 Jewish-American soldiers truly distinguishes the man and leader he was. Though unfortunately we were not privileged enough to honor him during his lifetime, we hope that this year’s Yehi Ohr Award will show the gratitude and appreciation that our nation has on behalf of his heroic actions that day,” JFR chairman Harvey Schulweis said.Several of the surviving Jewish GIs Edmonds saved attended the private event.Edmonds landed in Europe in the autumn of 1944 with the 106th Infantry Division, and then fought his way to the Belgian-German border as part of the 422nd Infantry Regiment.On December 16, he found himself involved in what came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge. On December 17, he had his last hot meal.“Believe me when I tell you we really had to keep our heads down. This was no picnic,” Edmonds wrote in his wartime diary.Though outgunned and outmanned, the Americans delayed the Germans long enough to allow General George Patton’s Third Army to ultimately come to the rescue.-‘Believe me when I tell you we really had to keep our heads down. This was no picnic’-But the rescue came too late for the 422nd regiment; Germany’s Second SS Panzer Division encircled them, and on December 19, Edmonds became one of thousands of Americans taken prisoner.“We surrendered to avoid slaughter. We were marched without food and water, except for the few sugar beets we found along the road and puddles,” the 25-year-old wrote in his diary shortly after being transported to the camp which held upwards of 50,000 Allied soldiers near Ziegenhain.As the highest-ranking office there, Edmonds, responsible for the camp’s 1,292 American POWs, relied on his faith and sense of duty to keep the men safe and to keep morale as high as possible, said his son Chris.One day in January 1945, a month after his capture, the Germans ordered all Jewish POWs to report outside their barracks the following morning. Edmonds knew what awaited the Jewish men under his command, so he decided to resist the directive. He ordered all his men — Jews and non-Jews alike — to fall out the following morning.Upon seeing all the soldiers lined up, the camp’s commandant, Major Siegmann, approached Edmonds. He ordered Edmonds to identify the Jewish soldiers.“We are all Jews here,” Edmonds said.Irate, the commandant jammed his pistol against Edmonds’ head and repeated the order. Again, Edmonds refused.-‘We are all Jews here’-“According to the Geneva Convention, we only have to give our name, rank and serial number. If you shoot me, you will have to shoot all of us, and after the war you will be tried for war crimes,” Edmonds had said, according to one of the men saved that day.The younger Edmonds regards all 1,292 men as heroes.“When Dad got the orders and told his men that they were not giving up the Jewish soldiers, they could have said no,” he said. “When the commandant pressed the gun against my father some of the men could have pointed out the Jews. None of them did that. They all stood together.”“What he did [that morning] sent an incredible bolt of hope through the men. They saw they could resist. They saw they could survive,” Edmonds said.After 100 days of captivity and near-starvation, the elder Edmonds returned to his home near Knoxville, Tennessee. He found work at Oakridge National Labs, and then, because he had joined the National Guard, he was again deployed, this time to Korea. He came home, married, and had two sons. He coached their baseball teams and worked in sales.He spoke little of his wartime experience and nothing of that day.-‘I asked him about it several times as a teenager and in college. He’d say “Son, there are just some things I’d rather not talk about”‘-“I asked him about it several times as a teenager and in college. He’d say ‘Son, there are just some things I’d rather not talk about,’ and tell us to read the diary,” Edmonds said.They remained in the dark until several years ago when one of son Chris Edmonds’ daughters started working on a college assignment that required her to make a video about a family member. Her grandmother gave her the diary her husband Roddie had kept during his time as a POW.The JFR award comes just a year after Edmonds became the only American soldier, and one of just five Americans, named Righteous Among Nations by Yad Vashem. He is also the only Righteous Among Nations to have saved American Jews.Edmonds, “was a leader who wouldn’t ask his men to do anything he wouldn’t do,” said son Chris.“This story is a clarion call to love one another regardless of our choices, or faith. He stood against oppression. He stood for decency. He stood for humanity. This thing we call life — it’s about all of us, not one of us,” Edmonds said.“This award is called ‘Let There Be Light.’ Dad would light up a room,” said Edmonds. “When he left you would wish he were still there.”
28 And when these things begin to come to pass,(ALL THE PROPHECY SIGNS FROM THE BIBLE) then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (RAPTURE) draweth nigh.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree,(ISRAEL) and all the trees;(ALL INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES)
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.(ISRAEL LITERALLY BECAME AND INDEPENDENT COUNTRY JUST BEFORE SUMMER IN MAY 14,1948.)
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth (ATOMIC BOMB) before them;(RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIM ARMIES AGAINST ISRAEL) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(ATOMIC BOMB AFFECT)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE
PM, Bennett meet in last-minute bid to reach outpost bill compromise-Netanyahu cabinet in standoff ahead of Monday vote on legislation that would retroactively validate illegal West Bank settlements-By Times of Israel staff December 3, 2016, 9:05 pm
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett and Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit Saturday evening, in an eleventh-hour effort to reach a compromise to the cabinet standoff over the so-called Regulation Bill ahead of Monday’s Knesset vote on the controversial legislation.The bill proposed by the national-religious Jewish Home party has been presented as a plan to avert the court-ordered December deadline to demolish the illegal outpost of Amona, and would see the government retroactively legalize other West Bank outposts built on privately-owned Palestinian land.Various versions of the Regulation Bill have passed the initial legislative hurdles in the Knesset in recent weeks despite repeated objections from Mandelblit and efforts by Netanyahu to delay the vote.According to the Ynet news website, Bennett is being pressured to agree to remove a clause that overrides the High Court of Justice’s ruling to evacuate Amona.On Saturday night, however, Bennett said no coalition compromise had been reached on the contentious issue.“Nothing has been concluded regarding the regulation of settlements in [the West Bank],” Bennett posted on Facebook. “We expect the Regulation Bill to pass in full as required by the coalition agreement.”Opposition to the Amona clause from Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon last week saw the Knesset vote on the bill pushed off to Monday.Kahlon’s 10-seat Kulanu faction has de facto veto power over legislation in the 67-seat coalition, as bills require a 61-seat majority to pass.After over a decade of legal wrangling, the High Court of Justice ruled in 2014 that the Amona outpost, near Ramallah, which was founded in 1996 and is home to some 40 families, was built on privately-owned Palestinian land and ordered it razed by December 25 of this year.The issue has galvanized pro-settlement politicians who have sought legislative ways to circumvent the court’s decision. But past proposals to grant the state the ability to seize the private land for Amona residents’ use were met with vociferous opposition of officials and political leaders. Mandelblit told lawmakers last month that such a breach of property protections would be deemed unconstitutional by the High Court of Justice. Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman have both expressed misgivings or opposition to the idea.Kahlon’s opposition to the measure has sparked frantic maneuvering in Netanyahu’s coalition. According to Knesset sources, his party opposes the bill’s article 7, that explicitly overturns the High Court of Justice verdict forbidding the expropriation of the privately-owned Palestinian land on which Amona sits.Last week, Jewish Home MK Nissan Slomiansky said that when the Regulation Bill is finally put to its first of three votes on Monday, lawmakers would take the rare step of voting on two versions of the bill at once – one that explicitly overturns the High Court of Justice’s ruling on Amona and a second that leaves Amona out of the bill’s protections – while negotiations over its final version would take place in committee after the vote.He asserted the bill now enjoys the support of “both the Knesset legal adviser and the Knesset speaker.”But legal adviser Elazar Stern later warned that the version of the bill that overturned the High Court verdict on Amona may mark a “very problematic” precedent for Israeli legislation “in that it cancels the final verdict of a court.”According to Stern, “We examined all the examples brought to the committee that seemed to offer a precedent for legislation that canceled court verdicts, and all these examples, as well as others, not only did not seek to cancel a verdict, but in fact contained the explicit caveat that they would not apply to previous verdicts.”Raoul Wootliff and Marissa Newman contributed to this report.
Gaza man arrested after crossing border into Israel-IDF apprehends unarmed Palestinian just north of security fence in Hof Ashkelon Regional Council-By Times of Israel staff December 3, 2016, 10:43 pm
A Palestinian man was arrested Saturday evening shortly after crossing into Israel from the Gaza Strip.The unarmed man was reportedly detained just north of the border fence in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council, and was taken in for questioning by the IDF.Earlier this month, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) warned Palestinians that the IDF would not hesitate to use lethal force against anyone attempting to cross into Israeli territory from the Strip.“Those who try to enter the Israeli area are risking their lives,” Maj. Gen. Yoav (Poly) Mordechai told the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency, a day after a Palestinian was killed in clashes with the Israeli army along the Gaza border.Mordechai added that Israel held the Hamas terror group which controls the Strip responsible for any potential uptick in violence near the Gaza border.
If you shoot me, you will have to shoot all of us'-Posthumous honor for US officer who saved 200 Jewish GIs from the Nazis — and never told a soul-With a Nazi pistol pointed at his head, Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds refused to reveal which of his soldiers were Jews. This week he was recognized for his bravery-By Cathryn J. Prince November 30, 2016, 3:21 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
NEW YORK — In a singular act of humanity and defiance, Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds stood up to a German commandant and saved 200 American Jewish GIs from transportation to a slave labor camp.It was 1945 and Edmonds had been a prisoner of war in Stalag IX-A, a German POW camp for less than a month. As the highest-ranking officer there, he was responsible for the camp’s 1,292 American POWs – 200 of whom were Jewish.Throughout the war, the Wehrmacht either murdered Jewish soldiers captured on the Eastern Front or sent them to extermination camps. Jewish soldiers captured on the Western Front could be sent to Berga, a slave labor camp where survival rates were dismal.Because of this policy the US military told its Jewish soldiers that if they were captured they should destroy evidence of their faith, such as dog tags, which were stamped with the letter H for Hebrew, or personal prayer books that some soldiers carried.Edmonds, who died in 1985, never spoke about the story. In fact, had it not been for his granddaughter’s college assignment many decades later, the officer’s story might have remained forever untold. But thanks to the subsequent persistence of Edmonds’ son, Pastor Chris Edmonds, the heroic story surfaced.On Monday night the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous posthumously honored Edmonds with its “Yehi Or” (Let There Be Light) Award.To understand why Edmonds never spoke about his courage — not to his wife, his children, nor to his grandchildren — is to understand something about the man himself.“He was a man of faith. He never bragged on anything but God. Well, maybe his sons sometimes,” said Edmonds in a telephone interview days before he was scheduled to accept the award on his father’s behalf at The New York Public Library.JFR chairman Harvey Schulweis also noted Edmonds’ humility.“Over the years we have worked with and honored many Holocaust survivors and their rescuers, but the story of Roddie Edmonds saving 200 Jewish-American soldiers truly distinguishes the man and leader he was. Though unfortunately we were not privileged enough to honor him during his lifetime, we hope that this year’s Yehi Ohr Award will show the gratitude and appreciation that our nation has on behalf of his heroic actions that day,” JFR chairman Harvey Schulweis said.Several of the surviving Jewish GIs Edmonds saved attended the private event.Edmonds landed in Europe in the autumn of 1944 with the 106th Infantry Division, and then fought his way to the Belgian-German border as part of the 422nd Infantry Regiment.On December 16, he found himself involved in what came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge. On December 17, he had his last hot meal.“Believe me when I tell you we really had to keep our heads down. This was no picnic,” Edmonds wrote in his wartime diary.Though outgunned and outmanned, the Americans delayed the Germans long enough to allow General George Patton’s Third Army to ultimately come to the rescue.-‘Believe me when I tell you we really had to keep our heads down. This was no picnic’-But the rescue came too late for the 422nd regiment; Germany’s Second SS Panzer Division encircled them, and on December 19, Edmonds became one of thousands of Americans taken prisoner.“We surrendered to avoid slaughter. We were marched without food and water, except for the few sugar beets we found along the road and puddles,” the 25-year-old wrote in his diary shortly after being transported to the camp which held upwards of 50,000 Allied soldiers near Ziegenhain.As the highest-ranking office there, Edmonds, responsible for the camp’s 1,292 American POWs, relied on his faith and sense of duty to keep the men safe and to keep morale as high as possible, said his son Chris.One day in January 1945, a month after his capture, the Germans ordered all Jewish POWs to report outside their barracks the following morning. Edmonds knew what awaited the Jewish men under his command, so he decided to resist the directive. He ordered all his men — Jews and non-Jews alike — to fall out the following morning.Upon seeing all the soldiers lined up, the camp’s commandant, Major Siegmann, approached Edmonds. He ordered Edmonds to identify the Jewish soldiers.“We are all Jews here,” Edmonds said.Irate, the commandant jammed his pistol against Edmonds’ head and repeated the order. Again, Edmonds refused.-‘We are all Jews here’-“According to the Geneva Convention, we only have to give our name, rank and serial number. If you shoot me, you will have to shoot all of us, and after the war you will be tried for war crimes,” Edmonds had said, according to one of the men saved that day.The younger Edmonds regards all 1,292 men as heroes.“When Dad got the orders and told his men that they were not giving up the Jewish soldiers, they could have said no,” he said. “When the commandant pressed the gun against my father some of the men could have pointed out the Jews. None of them did that. They all stood together.”“What he did [that morning] sent an incredible bolt of hope through the men. They saw they could resist. They saw they could survive,” Edmonds said.After 100 days of captivity and near-starvation, the elder Edmonds returned to his home near Knoxville, Tennessee. He found work at Oakridge National Labs, and then, because he had joined the National Guard, he was again deployed, this time to Korea. He came home, married, and had two sons. He coached their baseball teams and worked in sales.He spoke little of his wartime experience and nothing of that day.-‘I asked him about it several times as a teenager and in college. He’d say “Son, there are just some things I’d rather not talk about”‘-“I asked him about it several times as a teenager and in college. He’d say ‘Son, there are just some things I’d rather not talk about,’ and tell us to read the diary,” Edmonds said.They remained in the dark until several years ago when one of son Chris Edmonds’ daughters started working on a college assignment that required her to make a video about a family member. Her grandmother gave her the diary her husband Roddie had kept during his time as a POW.The JFR award comes just a year after Edmonds became the only American soldier, and one of just five Americans, named Righteous Among Nations by Yad Vashem. He is also the only Righteous Among Nations to have saved American Jews.Edmonds, “was a leader who wouldn’t ask his men to do anything he wouldn’t do,” said son Chris.“This story is a clarion call to love one another regardless of our choices, or faith. He stood against oppression. He stood for decency. He stood for humanity. This thing we call life — it’s about all of us, not one of us,” Edmonds said.“This award is called ‘Let There Be Light.’ Dad would light up a room,” said Edmonds. “When he left you would wish he were still there.”
