U.S. Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04) on Oct. 16 presented a long-overdue Purple Heart to a World War II veteran for being injured in the Battle of the Bulge, and a U.S. Flag flown over the Capitol to his wife to recognize her own service as a U.S. Marine serving in Hawaii during the war.
Mr. and Mrs. Leonard and Rose Brotzky, a retired couple from Manchester, N.J., both served in uniform during the Second World War. Mr. Brotzky, 89, a native of Orange, N.J., entered the U.S. Army in July 1943 with basic training at Fort Dix. Serving with the 36th Division 155th Field Artillery unit, he was injured by shrapnel during artillery exchange with the enemy in the Battle of the Bulge. He also suffered from extreme cold exposure during the battle, the coldest winter on record for 30 years. He was honorably discharged in 1945 at Fort Monmouth at the rank of Technician-5. Then Rose Katz, a native of Essex County, from Bloomfield, N.J., Mrs. Brotzky signed up for the Marines in 1943, serving in Pearl Harbor and separating with an honorable discharge as a staff sergeant in 1945 at the end of the war.
“Mr. Brotzky is receiving the Purple Heart Medal today for battlefield injuries sustained during the Battle of the Bulge—70 years late,” said Smith, the former Chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. “The French have honored him with the French Legion of Honor—the U.S. government is a bit slower.”
Mr. Brotzky was happy that the long wait for the medal was over. “After 70 years, I’m finally getting it,” he said.
Smith’s office had been attempting to obtain the medal since 2003, but the Army insisted on more evidence to satisfy requirements for the medal. Recent VA records surfaced, and Smith petitioned the National Personnel Record Center which finally approved the medal and sent it to Smith on Oct. 2.
After the war he graduated from both Cornel University with a pre-med degree and Rutgers University with a hospital administration degree. He met Rose at a veterans’ meeting. They married and settled in Livingston, N.J., raising two children. He worked for many years in pharmaceutical sales.
Mrs. Brotzky, 92, indicated that as soon as she read an article in the newspaper the women were being invited to sign up as Marines, she wrote to enlist and later had her father take her to New York City to be inducted. She served as a radio operator in the Marines, including being stationed at Pearl Harbor. A clerk at a motor company before the war, she later worked at the Bloomfield Independent Press and the West Essex Tribune after the War in advertising and feature writing.
She wanted the focus today to be on her husband’s Purple Heart, but said she was glad to have enlisted in the Marine: “I’m so happy I did it. When I saw it in the newspaper, nothing held me back.”
Mr. Brotzky previously earned other honors, including the European-African-Middle Eastern Ribbon, the Good Conduct Medal, the bronze Arrowhead Medal, the Victory Medal and the New Jersey Distinguished Service Medal. Mrs. Brotzky earned the Honorable Service Label Button and the New Jersey Distinguished Service Medal.
“The Brotzkys are the quintessential example of the Greatest Generation—patriotic, generous, brave and selfless,” Smith said. “They not only saved America and the world from tyranny, they built and sustained American values.”
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