Submitted by
Name: Dave Kearney
From: Aldergrove BC
Name: Dave Kearney
From: Aldergrove BC
Comments:
I haven't checked in since Nov 11 2008. I'm still too busy working. I moved from Surrey to Aldergrove, but not much else has changed. I'm still looking for old friends on the site. Putting on the BC reunion was such a blast!
The following is a cut and paste from my last entry.......
"I haven't been on the site for awhile-too busy working. The guest book always brings back memories. I still remember my addresses..Q lines TMQ, 20 Ubique, 10 Alfriston, and 101 Royal. I did Grade 1 in 50/51 in A10 with Terry Burns, Pauline Bayliss, Roy McClinton and Tanis Johnston. The Queen visited PEPS in 52. There was a double murder and suicide near the weather station about that time. I was in stage fright as a Christmas tree in the 54 Christmas concert "O Tannenbaum", hunted rabbits with Bob Findlay in high school,was school president until Mr Birch fired me for low marks, the "quick sand" at Waggle Springs, flunked Math and Physics in Gr 12 and never looked back. set pins in the bowling alley, and tried to play pool at Strange Hall. I remember the day in winter 62/63 when they closed down the camp when the wind chill went to 71 below. I walked backwards to the Coffee Shop that day. I had alot of fun in Gr 12 with Tanis, Diane Karpetz (where are you?) Judy Pachal, Doug J and Gary McGregor."
I haven't checked in since Nov 11 2008. I'm still too busy working. I moved from Surrey to Aldergrove, but not much else has changed. I'm still looking for old friends on the site. Putting on the BC reunion was such a blast!
The following is a cut and paste from my last entry.......
"I haven't been on the site for awhile-too busy working. The guest book always brings back memories. I still remember my addresses..Q lines TMQ, 20 Ubique, 10 Alfriston, and 101 Royal. I did Grade 1 in 50/51 in A10 with Terry Burns, Pauline Bayliss, Roy McClinton and Tanis Johnston. The Queen visited PEPS in 52. There was a double murder and suicide near the weather station about that time. I was in stage fright as a Christmas tree in the 54 Christmas concert "O Tannenbaum", hunted rabbits with Bob Findlay in high school,was school president until Mr Birch fired me for low marks, the "quick sand" at Waggle Springs, flunked Math and Physics in Gr 12 and never looked back. set pins in the bowling alley, and tried to play pool at Strange Hall. I remember the day in winter 62/63 when they closed down the camp when the wind chill went to 71 below. I walked backwards to the Coffee Shop that day. I had alot of fun in Gr 12 with Tanis, Diane Karpetz (where are you?) Judy Pachal, Doug J and Gary McGregor."
Added: August 1, 2010
Name: John Edmondson
E-mail: John@jtemgt.com
I was thinking about different people from Shilo over the years. One of my strongest memories is on learning that a Shilo kid who lived down the road on Petawawa Cr. had died in VietNam. For those who remember Paul I have attached the following from a Manitoba web site titled "The Forgotten"
During the Vietnam War more than 12,000 Canadians saw active service in the armed forces of the United States. Of that number one hundred and ten were killed. One of them was from Brandon.
Paul Harvey Wolos was born in Port Arthur, Ontario (now Thunder Bay) on 22 July 1947 but by the time he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps as a private first class he and his family were living on McDonald Avenue in Brandon’s west end. Paul’s tour of duty started on 31 March 1967 in Quang Tin Province and ended twenty-eight days later during Operation Union.
Operation Union was a search and destroy mission launched on 21 April 1967 in a densely populated and rice-rich valley considered essential to the ability of the North Vietnamese Army to control South Vietnam’s five northern provinces. The Fifth Marine Regiment in which Wolos served was an experienced force that had fought in Vietnam since its arrival in the summer of 1966, and it was assigned to the valley to support the outnumbered South Vietnamese Army.
The action that resulted in the death of Wolos started when a reinforced marine company began a sweep towards a communist held village. When it came into contact with units of the North Vietnamese Army, and was pinned down in a tree line near its objective, elements of the 3rd Battalion were dispatched by helicopter to support them. While the main body of the reinforcements fought into a communist-held village to engage the NVA, other elements landed from helicopters east of the battlefield to block the enemy’s most likely escape route. By the next morning the North Vietnamese had been driven out of the enemy village.
Wolos’s unit was assigned the mission of pursuing the fleeing enemy and destroying its fighting forces and their supplies. When contact was finally made, fighting was so intense that it was four days before the first of the wounded could be evacuated. Prior to the start of the battle Wolos had been advised that, as a foreign-born member of the Marines, he could not be forced to engage in active combat. He refused to serve with a support unit, however, and on April 28th he became the only member of K Company to be killed during the confrontation.
Although he died almost forty years ago, Paul’s memory lives on in the hearts and minds of both those with whom he served, and friends and family members. In June 2003 his company commander posted a message on a website established by the American military to honour those killed during the Vietnam War. “That night of 28 April we slept in an open field that was heavily boobie trapped. As we started taking casualties and evacuated two of our wounded you stepped on a bouncing betty and were mortally wounded. We tried to confort and make you feel better but the corpsman could not do much for you. We put you in a helicopter that flew you back to the hospital in Chu Lai. We prayed that you would be saved but your death was my first combat casualty and I never forgot you. We the members of K/3/5 think of you every year when we have our reunions. We all remember you and wish you would have survived. You were a very fine Marine. Semper Fidelis.”
The message prompted Paul’s brother to post one of his own. “After 37 years the pain of losing my brother has not dulled. I have often wondered who was with Paul and whether or not Paul was alone at the time of his death. I now know he was with his Marine buddies and he was looked after to the best of everyone’s ability. I know Paul had a very strong sense of loyalty to the Marine Corps and was very proud to be a Marine. Paul died for a cause he believed in, and for a country he had love and respect for.”
Among the other messages posted on the website is one from Joan, a high school classmate of Paul’s. It reads simply “Always remembered.”
Paul Wolos is buried in Thunder Bay’s St. Andrew’s Cemetery beside his father and mother.