Rodolfo “Rudy” Hernandez to be featured on a stamp

| July 27, 2014

Rodolfo Hernandez

Most of you probably know the story of Rodolfo “Rudy” Hernandez, in fact we wrote about him a month or so ago when the Airborne & Special Operations Museum in Fayetteville, NC unveiled a diorama of his Medal of Honor moment when he killed 6 of the enemy eye-to-eye in Korea in May 1951. Well the Post Office is planning on issuing a commemorative stamp to the hero who passed a few months back, according to a link that Enigma sent us from WRAL;

Rodolfo “Rudy” Hernandez, a Fayetteville Korean War Medal of Honor recipient, will be immortalized on a Korean War Medal of Honor stamp sheet, the U.S. Postal Service announced Thursday.

The first stamps will be issued during a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Saturday. Hernandez’ picture will appear outside the stamps on a stamp sheet.

[…]

The morning after the attack, Hernandez was pronounced dead after he was found lying among the bodies of the North Korean soldiers. When a soldier saw a slight movement of Hernandez’s hand, medics began frantically trying to save his life.

[…]

He spent his post-war years working for Department of Veterans Affairs, retiring in 1980.

Category: Real Soldiers

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2/17 Air Cav

I visited USPS and found only two new Medal of Honor stamps. I also found Malcolm X, Lydia Mendoza (?), Harvey Milk press sheet w/o die cuts, and other crap there and on Ebay. So, if there’s a philatelist among us (or a cunning linguist who also collects stamps), here’s the questions: Is each MOH recipient featured on a separate stamp and, if so, where are they?

$20 MIKE

Cunning linguist…NYUK NYUK…

4thID Rvn

Wonderful. Harvey is an inspiration to the taking-it-up-the-ass community which has contributed so much to – well – nothing except the destruction of decent values in the US.

Ex-PH2

Good to see this. We need something positive in our lives.

MCPO NYC USN Ret.

Great story.

uacivpol

The stamps are the Army and navy versions of the MOH. The “cover” will have the photos of 18 living (at that time ) recipients of the MOH. As mentioned here Rudy Hernandez has passed.

2/17 Air Cav

What’s a cover? Is it the booklet that contains the stamps?

2/17 Air Cav

Thanks. I get it now. He’s not on a stamp at all. Nor is he on the booklet cover. It’s a commemorative thingy. The stamps are the Medals of Honor. It was terribly confusing.

Brian

Just a point of clarification, Rudy Hernandez is currently ineligible to be placed on a stamp because he has not been deceased long enough. As an amateur stamp and coin collecting nerd, I have learned that the law in the US states that an individual must be deceased for two years before they can be featured on a coin or stamp and it is illegal to feature living individuals. The only exception is that a US president gets featured on a stamp on their first birthday after they pass away. FDR and JFK were also placed on the dime and half dollar the year after they died.

Wesley Wilson AKA Enigma4you

To clarify,

The issue date was yesterday so it may not be in post offices yet.

This was in the works before he died last December and has nothing to do with his death. It literally takes an act of congress to get anyone on a stamp as a commemorative that has been dead less than two years. (Except a president)

rb325th

I have never been one to collect or even buy commemorative stamps, I will make an exception for this one.