39-cent Purple Heart stamp unveiled
The new Purple Heart stamp is out.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1835874.php
By Karen Jowers
Times staff writer
May 30, 2006
In a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery marking the re-issue of the Purple Heart Definitive Stamp, Secretary of Veterans Affairs R. James Nicholson also presented the Purple Heart medal to two soldiers, Spc. Michael Hilliard and Spc. Ian Wagner.
Hilliard and Wagner are both being treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., for combat wounds.
The U.S. Postal Service first issued a 37-cent stamp with the Purple Heart medal image in 2003. It is a photograph by Ira Wexler of one of two Purple Heart medals awarded to James Loftus Fowler, a Marine lieutenant colonel wounded in Vietnam in 1968. The new stamp, which went on sale nationally May 27, shows the same image of George Washington on a purple background within the heart-shaped medallion. But it reflects this year’s increase in postage to 39 cents.
“I told the crowd we should make this a perpetual stamp, just like the American flag stamp,” said Jim Randles, national commander of the Military Order of the Purple Heart. “As the American flag is the symbol of the freedom we enjoy, the Purple Heart is a symbol of the cost of that freedom.”
“This stamp will be a daily reminder of the extraordinary valor of our service members,” Nicholson said, according to a press release about the May 26 ceremony. Nearly 100 Purple Heart recipients were invited by the Military Order of the Purple Heart to sit in a VIP section to watch the ceremony.
The Purple Heart was created by George Washington in 1782 for soldiers in the Continental Army. The medal is now presented to service members wounded in combat, as well as to the next of kin for veterans who die in combat.
Postal Service officials say customers have 30 days to get the “first day of issue postmark” by mail. To do this:
• Buy new stamps at a local post office, by telephone at (800) STAMP-24 (800) 782-6724, or at the www.usps.com/shop.
• Affix the stamps to envelopes of your choice and address the envelopes (to yourself or others).
• Place these envelopes in a larger envelope addressed to:
Purple Heart Definitive Stamp
Postmaster
Special Cancellations
1435 N. Quincy Street
Arlington, VA 22210-9700