Purple Heart Medal 2019 Forever Stamps — Military Tribute, First-Class Postage

Who receives it

Service members wounded or killed in action, by award made in the President's name. Among combat-wounded veterans — the Military Order of the Purple Heart speaks for them — it holds two distinctions worth stating plainly: no military decoration anywhere in the world still in use is older, and none before it was ever open to an ordinary enlisted soldier.

Two lives

George Washington established it during the Revolution, and the original was literally a heart cut from purple cloth, given for meritorious action. When the fighting stopped, so did the award.

It came back 150 years later. The 200th anniversary of Washington's birth, in 1932, brought both a reinstatement and a new form: metal rather than cloth, purple bordered in gold, suspended from a purple and white ribbon, carrying a profile bust of Washington beneath his family coat of arms.

This issue

The 2019 stamp reworks the 2012 design, adding a border pitched to match the intense purple of the medal and its ribbon. Ira Wexler took the photograph. William J. Gicker was art director; Bryan Duefrene designed it.

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