Better Late Than..... Veteran finally gets World War II medals

Greensboro News Record - Saturday, June 9, 2001
By Allison Perkins
Staff Writer

Greensboro -  When Daniel Bartko was promoted to Private First Class and awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge on a damp, cloudy February morning in 1945, the moment couldn't have been any better.

Each honor came with a $10 raise in pay, nearly doubling the young soldier's pay from $21 a month to $41.

"It was more money than we could have known what to do with at that time" he said.

Two weeks ago, 56 years after Bartko earned the combat badge, Congressman Howard Coble presented the World War II veteran with Eight more honors and awards - including the Bronze Star, which Bartko wasn't even aware he had earned when he left war-torn Europe.

The Bronze Star is awarded to those who distinguish themselves by heroic or meritorious service in combat and is automatically awarded to service members who earn either the Combat Infantryman Badge or the Combat Medical Badge.  President Franklin D. Roosevent signed an executive order about the same time Bartko received his medal that retroactively awarded the Bronze Star to all recipients of the combat infantryman and medical badges.

Bartko, now 80, said he realized he was eligible after reading a story in the News and World Record about a woman who asked the government to award her Father the medal posthumously.

"I didn't know I was eligible 'til I read that, and then I thought, well, it'd be a lot simpler if I did it now instead of waiting 'til I was dead and letting somebody else do it, "  he said laughingtly.

His wife, Edith, said the entire family was excited by the honors.

"If we couldn't be where the Army people were, who should have presented this, the next best thing was to have it done by our congressman," she said.

Officials at Coble's office said they receive about five requests a week from Veterans who have either lost their medals or never received them because papers were lost during battle.  It took about two months for officials to research Bartko's case and send his medals to the congressman's office.

The New Jersey native was drafted in 1944 and assigned to the 5th Division in Europe in January 1945, just after the Battle of the Bulge ended.

He was sent straight into combat and three weeks later earned the Combat Infantryman Badge for his actions on the battlefield.  From then until the Germans surrendered on May 7, 1945, Bartko's unit fought in France, Luxembourg, Germany and what was then Czechoslovakia during the Rhineland and Central Europe campaigns.

He was one of the most well-liked guys in the unit, Bartko said, because he never minded carrying the back-breaking, 20-pound Browning machine gun when the unit trudged across battlefields and through thick woodlands.

"It didn't bother me because I had been a farm boy and it was lighter than a bag of potatoes," he said.

Now he tells stories of his war days to his family as the memories reappear, seemingly from nowhere, he said.  When they do, he writes them on index cards, and plans to one day put them together for his family to read.

As an infantry unit, Bartko's company was under artillery fire often.  Was he scared?  Yes, he said, but he brushes it off with another story.

Once, when they crossed the Rhine River, he said the sun was setting and he could see "pink things" rising above the trees to the East.  Though they were too far away to hear, he soon realized they were tracer bullets, sulphur-coated rounds that lit the sky when they were fired.

As his unit started toward the area, it turned dark.  As they began to cross the river on bridges built by American engineering units, they were hit by enemy artillery fire.  Luckily, Bartko said, the Germans were way off target, hitting another bridge 100 yards behind them.

Once on the opposite bank, the unit found a landscape "honeycombed with fox holes," dug and left behind by earlier American troops.

When Bartko finally left Europe, his unit was scheduled to head to the Pacific.  Before they departed, the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, and the mission was canceled.

Bartko left the Army as a Sargent after only two years in service and went on to earn his Bachelors and Masters degrees.  he became a science teacher in Illinois where he met his wife, Edith, who was also working as a teacher.  The pair moved to North Carolina, her home state, in 1979.  He later taught math at GTCC until his retirement in 1999.

Receiving his medals now, so long after leaving Army life behind, Bartko says, makes him feel "important", especially since World War II anniversaries, such as D-Day on June 6, have even in the spotlight recently.

"I remember in grade school a teacher talked about how there were still two Civil War veterans alive," he said.  "That's what some kids are thinking about us now.  I feel part of it".

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  I love you, Uncle Dan!!!

With Love, Your Niece Vicky