Uncommon valor, a Marine is honored

This story was published in 2013 when Mr. Broeker was honored with a special presentation of a flag flown over the Iwo Jima Memorial.

“I never thought I would be honored with something like this,” Lee Broeker said Wednesday night when the Southern Indiana Leathernecks presented him with a commemorative U.S. Flag from the Iwo Jima Memorial in Washington D.C.

The flag, donated by the Jasper American Legion Post 147,  had been flown over the memorial to honor Broeker’s service in the Marine Corps during WW II.

Besides a moment of hesitation when he remembers how many men from his company band died during a single campaign, Broeker tells his story with the resignation of a man who did what had to be done.

He was born to Bill and Selma Broeker in Holland on December 4, 1924, and grew up to be athletic, participating in football, basketball and track at Huntingburg High School. When he was a junior, his sister became ill with diphtheria. The common practice at the time was to quarantine the members of the home to prevent the spread of the incurable disease. “We had a sign on the front of the home that said ‘quarantine.'” Lee explained.

Because of the quarantine, Lee missed 11 weeks of his junior year. “I went back and had to take a test for those classes, but I didn’t pass,” he explained. “My teacher told me I would have to take my junior year all over again.”

 Pearl Harbor had just occurred and he had other plans though. Men were volunteering for the war all over the country and 17-year-old Lee wanted to go too. “I found out I could join if I was 17, so me and another fellow from Dale headed down to Evansville and signed up,” he said.

Lee returned home long enough to pack up and then headed out for boot camp. When he arrived, he and the drill instructor hit it off because of Lee’s physical strength from participating in high school sports. “They said, ‘do 100 push-ups,’ and no one could do them but me,” he explained. “So the instructor and I became friends and I taught everyone how to do 100 push-ups.”

After Lee completed boot camp, he took 11 days for leave. Just enough time to travel five days by train back home, take a day to get married to Emadean Schmeltekope, and then return to his station in California on another five-day train ride. Lee grew up across the street from Emadean but she was six years his senior. “I don’t know how we got together, you know, with the age and all,” Lee explained. “But we did, I was 17 and she was 23.”

[quote style=”boxed”]”We broke all the rules and regulations. Kapow! Kapow! We had a few shells left and started shooting them up in the air.” Lee Broeker on learning the war with Japan was over.[/quote] The Marines classified Lee as a Bandsman; he speculates this is because he played baritone horn in a band that placed second in Nationals at Flint, Michigan. As a Bandsman, Lee played during special ceremonies between campaigns on the islands. “Back at headquarters, we would play after the fighting was over,” Lee said. “We would play while they decorated the heroes.”

While Lee and the other band members were on campaign, the musical instruments were stored on board the ship. When it came time to play, Lee said they would find lizards and other animals living in the instruments when they took them out of their cases.

During the campaigns everyone fought, Iwo Jima was small and battle lines didn’t exist; everyone was on the front line. Lee was assigned to be a litter-bearer, or stretcher-bearer, with three other bandsmen. They also had a dog that was trained to go into the extensive tunnel system on the island and flush the enemy out. “The dog would go in and the Japanese would come out,” Lee explained. “Sometimes the dog would be attached to a leg when it came out.”

As a litter bearer, Lee and his team provided first aid to the wounded Marines when possible before they were transferred back to the hospital ships. Lee stated he remembered a wounded Marine on his litter saying “Keep going… Mom wants to see me home”, as he was carrying him to the back of the lines.

Lee served in a total of three Asia Pacific campaigns including Guam, Iwo Jima and the Marianas Islands. During that time he advanced quickly from private to sergeant. According to Lee, he landed on Guam as a private and left as a private first class. He was a corporal by the time he got to Iwo Jima but left there 38 days later as a sergeant.

He fought through some of the most pivotal battles in the Pacific. He can still recall the sights and sounds of the battle on the beach landing on Guam and the first flag planted on the mountainous volcanic terrain of Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima, where the iconic photo was taken later.

After Iwo Jima, the Marines of the Third Marine Division were back on board their ship recuperating and waiting for their next orders when they received word that the atomic bomb had been dropped on  Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “We didn’t really know where we were headed but we were on the ship when the news came out that Japan had surrendered,” he said. “We broke all the rules and regulations. Kapow! Kapow! We had a few shells left and started shooting them up in the air.”

Lee and his unit were more than ready to come home and, because he hadn’t been on furlough since after boot camp, he was able to return home for furlough within two months of Japan’s surrender. He arrived home to his wife and Starr, his two-year-old daughter that he had never met. “Starr ran around the house when I came up, she didn’t know who I was, but we got acquainted real quick,” Lee explained with a grin.

After his furlough, Lee headed up to Chicago to be discharged from the Marine Corps. He returned home and worked at the Huntingburg Wagon Works, Olinger Construction and eventually retired from the Jasper Corporation (Kimball International). Raven, the Broeker’s son, joined the family a few years after Lee was discharged.

These days, the 88-year-old Lee spends time with friends and family in the area. He drives up to his daughter’s home in Haysville to help her with her mowing and is currently working on scraping the gravel back on her drive from the recent weather.

A 31-pound mounted striped bass hangs on his kitchen wall over top of photos and other memorabilia from the war and his life. His wife, who wouldn’t let him bring home the 50-plus pound striper from North Carolina, passed away several years ago.

Marines, friends, family members and neighbors packed into the small living room of his house on Huntingburg’s Walnut Street on Wednesday. They overflowed into the kitchen and spilled out the front door to honor a Marine, a veteran, a man that has seen more than most, a hero.