Photo courtesy of NYPD News/ Twitter.
Osceola “Ozzie” Fletcher has received his Purple Heart, finally. The 99-year-old World War II veteran was wounded as he fought during the Battle of Normandy on June 6, 1944.
Mr. Fletcher was a combat veteran in the army with the 254th Port Battalion. He was wounded on D-Day during Operation Overlord when his vehicle was overturned after being struck by a German missile. The driver was killed, and Fletcher was injured. Fletcher, who was wounded three times during the war, should have been awarded the Purple Heart for his service but was denied due to racism within the military.
He spoke about his military days to Our Time Press.
“Whites were wounded,” he said. “Negroes were injured. So, as an injured soldier, you were not entitled to a Purple Heart…Black soldiers didn’t get the Purple Heart. They got injured, damaged, hurt. But they never got wounded. Only the white men who were wounded got Purple Hearts.”
At least 2000 Black soldiers were at the Battle of Normandy and faced extreme racism and segregation. Fletcher said that he and the other Black soldiers worked as the “slave battalion” by loading and unloading ships and doing other hard-labor jobs left for the Black soldiers. The Army combat veteran also said he worked as a crane operator and delivered food to the men on the front lines.
Mr. Fletcher wore his military uniform to the ceremony for his Purple Heart at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn on June 20.
“It’s about time,” said Fletcher.
Fletcher, born in Manhattan and grew up in foster homes, also served as a sergeant with the NYPD for 26 years. The Purple Heart recipient also worked as a teacher for 14 years in New York and a community relations specialist in the Crime Prevention Division of the Brooklyn’s District Attorney’s Office. He worked for the DA’s Office for 24 years. He has five children and seven grandchildren.
Fletcher’s daughter, Jacqueline Streets, helped her father receive the well-deserved honor after asking for her help. His military records were destroyed in a 1973 fire, but an interview he gave years ago detailed the event, and Streets contacted the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the interview. Fletcher and Streets were later notified that he would be getting the Purple Heart for his service after 76 years.
The army veteran didn’t begin speaking on his military service until his friends started to pass away about 20 years ago. Streets said that her father wanted people to know what happened 76 years ago.
“You want people to know what you lived through,” she said. “You don’t want to just disappear and no one ever really knows what happened.”
When Streets asked her father how he felt about the news, he responded, “Good.”
He added that he would frame the medal and noted that now, his name will never be forgotten.