I found this video on You-Tube this morning. Turn down the volume if you are at work!

It is with great sadness that we have learned that Ken passed away on May 25, 2010 at the age of 55.  Ken proudly served in the PPCLI and as a member of the Canadian Airborne Regiment.  He was a qualified Pathfinder.  He served two tours on Peacekeeping missions in both Yugoslavia and Cyprus. He also served three years as  Regimental Sergeant Major in the Essex Kent Scottish. He was a toolmaker by trade and was recognized as the best gunsmith in Ontario. Sports was his passion, along with a ride on his Harley accompanied by his many brothers. He touched many with his kindness and generosity and will be greatly missed by all his friends and neighbours.

Visitation will take place at the Victoria Greenlawn Memorial Chapel and Visitation Centre, 1525 Hwy 3, (1km west of Walker Road) 519-969-3939 on Saturday, May 29, 2010 from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 until time of funeral service at 7:30 p.m. Cremation to follow. Online condolences may be left at www.greenlawncemetery.ca

It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Capt Pete Vallee, CD (Retired/Retraité) who served with the R 22e R and with the Airborne Regiment with 1 CDO and the AB School in Rivers and Edmonton for many years and trained jumped with the Sky Hawks in Edmonton during the 70′s.

Memorial Services will be held on Feb 20th at J.J. Cardinal at 560 Lakeshore Drive, Dorval, Quebec.

Viewing will commence at 13:00, with the service beginning at 16:00.

Several people have contacted me this week to inform me that Gord Legarie has passed away after a long battle with cancer. Frank MacNeil wrote;

I am sorry to say that Gord Legarie, a great soldier, person, friend and jumper has passed away on Jan 9, 2010, he had a very hard battle with cancer that he fought which turned out to be his last. Gord served in the Canadian Airborne Regt, 2 Airborne Commando and the Canadian Airborne School, he will be missed by all, there will be a gathering to celebrate Gord life on Friday Jan 15th at 10 am in Edmonton Alberta, Sherwood Park.

Gord R.I.P.. old buddy you now will help Dave Mack and Bob Hodgson in securing the DZ for the rest of us, we will meet again old brother have a good one.

Airborne…….

Our condolences go out to his family and friends. Rest in Peace brother…

We get tons of spam on these forums and most of it comes from Russian IP addresses. I was looking at out logs today and nearly half of the traffic to these forums is spammers trying to get in and almost all of them are from Russia.

To stop this misuse of the forums, I have put a full ban on all IP addresses originating from the Russian Federation. People from Russia can still view the rest of the site, but they will get an access denied if they attempt to view the forums.

I don’t like doing this as it may cause a few real users problems, but it had to be done.

As everyone knows, we have been having a lot of problems keeping the site up recently and it has been getting much worse recently. I tried everything I could think of to make the site more stable, but in the end, this site was much too popular for the old tired server that it was hosted on.

To all of you who have stuck with us through these difficult times, thank you and please accept my apologies for being so stubborn that I thought I could patch everything together with duct tape and keep it working.

In my defense, those are characteristics I learned in the Airborne.

I finally broke down, opened my wallet and took the time to move everything over to a new web host with room to grow. The various areas of the site will be coming back online over the next day or so, but I expect that I will miss things in the move. If you notice anything wrong with the site, please let me know by posting to the thread in the forums, to the comments on this story, or if all else fails emailing me at rob (at) prouse (dot) org.

Once again, thanks for your patience.

I just got word that Bill Greenshields has passed away. He does not want a memorial, so there will be no service. He will be cremated at the Evergreen Funeral Home in Edmonton, then his ashes will be sent to New Glasgow, NS to be buried beside his dad.

Please send condolences to Bill’s mom at shirljgf@aol.com. She would really appreciate hearing from Bill’s Airborne friends and all those who knew him.

WO Michael Hamilton died in an Edmonton hospital on Sunday after a car crash on Friday. He is a parachutist with the Canadian Forces Land Advanced Warfare Centre and a former member of the Skyhawks.

Our condolences go out to the family of another fallen jumper…

2009 will be the first year for an informal reunion for Royals who were posted to CFB London.  Any past or present Royal is welcome to attend.

The theme of the reunion is outdoor stuff, sports, canoe races, barbeques, bonfire parties and seeing your old buddies again.

For more information and to register, see the Reunion Website.

John Lyle sent in about a dozen photos from the FSSF taken in 1944 and 1945. They are all well captioned and have most of the names of the soldiers. They have all been added to the Unit Photos, so make sure that you head over and check them out.

Thanks for sending them in John. If anyone has any other photos they would like to submit, just get in touch through the contact page.