A shock from 1942: Julian Breillatt was a Navy medic when he was wounded during a Japanese bomb attack on a small, South Pacific island in 1942. In late June 1992, Breillatt, who now lives at the Hawthorn Lakes Retirement Center in Vernon Hills, received a package from the Defense Department.
Inside, with no note or word of explanation, was a Purple Heart. Even more puzzling, Breillatt had already received a Purple Heart while he was in a field hospital recovering from his injuries. That one also came without paperwork.
”The doctors came in and pinned it to my pajamas,” he recalled. ”I don`t know why they sent this one to me now, 50 years later, and I haven`t gotten around to writing or calling someone to find out why,” Breillat, now 89, said recently. Breillatt, who was hurt as he ran from a bomb shelter to tend to a wounded serviceman, plays down the extent of his injuries, even though they cost him the sight of his right eye and the hearing in his right ear. ”The man ahead of me had his head blown right off of his body,” he said.
Breillatt retired from the Navy with 32 years of service and the rank of lieutenant commander in the medical service corps. He had met his wife, Ruth, who died July 1, during his service with the Navy. ”She was a cute little Navy nurse. In those days, though, they didn`t allow women to stay in the service after they were married. She became the wife of a sailor boy,” he recalled fondly. ”We had a lot of good years together and two wonderful children.”
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