SUPPORTERS OF WAR-HERO COMMEMORATIVE STAMPS AREN'T LICKED YET.

Byline: Dennis McCarthy 

``The Founding Fathers didn't want anything that smacked of royalty. They considered it your duty to fight for your country. But in the Civil War, it became apparent there were certain men who were fighting above the call of duty.''

- War historian Beverly Van Valkenburg

And thus, the Congressional Medal of Honor was born - becoming this country's No. 1 symbol of heroism.

Becoming every kid's dream.

``I must have watched the movie 15 or 20 times as a young boy in 1955, sitting in that dark theater, wanting to grow up just like him - wanting to be a hero,'' Stan Smith was saying Wednesday by phone from his home in Potomac, Md.

The movie was ``To Hell And Back,'' the star Audie Murphy - America's most decorated soldier of World War II.

Murphy was awarded more than 20 medals, including the Medal of Honor, while fighting through North Africa, Italy, France, Germany and Austria.

Smith had just read my Tuesday column questioning why Elvis, Marilyn, birds, flowers and just about anything with a shelf life in this country gets a commemorative stamp but war heroes don't.

As founder of the 110-member Audie Murphy National Fan Club, he is intimately familiar with the Postal Service Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee's snub of all Medal of Honor winners.

The committee has honored the Medal of Honor with a stamp in the past, but never the winners.

``We've been trying for two years to get Audie a stamp, but the position of the stamp advisory board has been that the matter was looked into and studied and decided against,'' Smith said. ``Exactly why it was decided against we've never been told.''

And maybe never will. The advisory committee meets only four times a year in Washington, D.C., and cannot be reached other than by letter, according to postal officials.

Smith has a hunch why Audie and other war heroes are getting a blind eye from the committee, though.

``I think they feel if they allow it for Audie, they'll have to allow it for the (Gen. Douglas) MacArthur people, and all the people who have a favorite Medal of Honor winner.

``They're trying to avoid controversy, so what we get are flowers and birds,'' Smith says.

If that is indeed the reason why the committee won't honor Medal of Honor winners with a stamp, it shows the blatant shortsightedness the committee has on who it thinks the public wants to see honored on postal service stamps.

I'll take a wild shot in the dark here and say most people would take a war hero over a bird or flower. I don't think we're quite that vacuous a society yet.

And why does someone have to be dead 10 years (except presidents) to be eligible to get a commemorative stamp from the post office? What is this, the Baseball Hall of Fame?

Of the 3,401 winners of a Medal of Honor, (1,520 of them from the Civil War when it was the only medal issued for valor), there are 180 living winners walking among us, according to the Medal of Honor Society.

Name me 10. Name me five. Name me one.

What an embarrassment. We shower sports stars, movie stars and celebrity murderers with tons of publicity, but we can't get one lousy stamp for guys who went over and above the call of duty when the bullets were flying and the bombs going off.

``You know what really gets to me?'' Smith says. ``Three foreign countries have already dedicated stamps to Audie for being the most decorated soldier of World War II.

``If foreign countries have the foresight to honor him, something's wrong that this country isn't.''

If U.S. Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) has his way, that will change.

Obey, with the support of the Medal of Honor Society, soon will be sending out a letter to the Citizen's Stamp Advisory Committee proposing a commemorative stamp series of select Medal Of Honor winners from the Civil War through Vietnam.

``We would not prejudge who would be picked,'' Obey said Wednesday. ``The committee would choose who to honor, just like it chose among the heroes of the West and jazz greats for those stamp series.''

I hope it's not too late to get the committee to consider Medal of Honor winners for its 1997 selection list of commemorative stamps.

Who knows, though? The committee might have to bump something important and meaningful about the history of this country off the list to get war heroes on it.

I hear the ``Great Sewing Stitches of the American West'' commemorative series may be in trouble.

MEMO: Dennis McCarthy's column appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday.