Soldier’s death has youngsters talking

Sarah Elizabeth Brown, Chronicle-Journal, 6 Oct 06

Mc Kenzie Public School students Christopher Huls and Alyssa Maunula sign pages in a book of condolences that classmates and teachers have prepared in memory of Pte. Josh Klukie who was killed in Afghanistan last Friday. Klukie attended the school from junior kindergarten through Grade 8. The book will be presented to Klukie’s family during his funeral service to be held Tuesday.

Two area schools are remembering one of their own.

A book of condolences is filling up at Hillcrest High School for Pte. Josh Klukie.

As well, the 23-year-old soldier’s photo will be included in the Stairwell of Honour, a collection of 84 Hillcrest graduates who never returned from the Second World War.

Klukie’s photo will be number 85. He’s the 37th Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan since 2002, and the third from the Thunder Bay area.

He was killed a week ago after stepping on an anti-tank mine while on patrol near Kandahar.

At Mc Kenzie Public School in Shuniah where Klukie attended junior kindergarten through Grade 8, classes are discussing the conflict in Afghanistan and what it means to be a soldier.

They’re writing their thoughts in an album for Klukie’s family.

It’s a Mc Kenzie school tradition for graduating students to decorate a ceiling tile. A young Shuniah artist will paint one specifically for Klukie, to be unveiled on Remembrance Day.

“Once you’re a Mc Kenzie kid and you go out in the world, we don’t forget you,” said Lynne Robertson, the school’s chief custodian and a driving force behind the memorial project. “We don’t forget our own.”

Four of those Mc Kenzie kids broke into debate among themselves Thursday about Canada’s role in Afghanistan, voicing the same variety of opinions heard in the House of Commons and read in letters to the editor pages.

But, they agreed, it’s sad a fellow Mc Kenzie kid has died overseas, and Remembrance Day — always important to them, the boys said — will mean even more now.

“It’s a little bit of this place gone,” said Dustin Hurd, 11.

“I think they are really brave,” said Kristjan Paarsalu, 10, about soldiers. “I think we need to respect them.”

Several of the boys said they’re sad for Klukie’s Shuniah family, mother Carol and elder brothers Daniel and David.

“I feel sorry for the family because their son died, not even having a chance to save himself,” said Aaron Smith, 11.

“I’m sorry for your son and I hope you’re going to be all right without him,” said Cody Huls, 11, about what he plans to write for the Klukies.

Calling soldiers “brave,” Huls added, “I hope they know they might never come back.”

“He’s not going over there to help our country, but people over there who are worse off than us,” said Hurd.

When Klukie joined the military, he asked Hillcrest co-op teacher Trish Somerleigh to write a reference letter.

Though he’d finished paramedic training, it didn’t surprise Somerleigh that the competitive young man she knew since boyhood would be attracted to a challenge.

He was also a volunteer firefighter with the Shuniah department, noted Robertson.

“He was always a protector,” she said.

As a youngster, he saw other students bullied in the schoolyard and walked over to talk to the victims, sending a silent message that had the tormentor slinking away.

“He’s a leader by example,” said Somerleigh, recalling the young man’s inner strength after his father Reg died.

“That’s a tremendously difficult thing for a young person to go through, and Josh, he maintained his academics, he maintained his sports, he was consistently supportive of his mother, supportive of his brothers,” she said. “He was generally just a very strong, good person.”

Klukie was one of two exceptional basketball captains, and was the sort of leader who made coaching easy, said Hillcrest coach Wayne Magill.

During running drills at basketball practice, “Josh was the guy to catch,” said Magill. “He was extremely skilled.”

At a prestigious tournament in Saskatoon, before Hillcrest played the game that would determine third and fourth place, Klukie asked his coaches if they could be sure that all the teammates got to play.

Klukie, an inch or two over six feet, played small forward.

But he played even bigger.

“In the unfriendly confines of our small gym, the walls come very quickly,” said Magill. “And Josh is the reason why we have mats on those walls.

“He’s very fast and he would take that ball to the hoop very hard.”

The team’s starting play — shovel the ball to the left-handed Klukie to fake a shot and drive hard to the basket — was pretty much two guaranteed points, said Magill.

“He could run forever.”

Somerleigh last saw Klukie when he was home for the summer, knowing he was headed to Afghanistan.

Walking with her husband, she saw a person running down a small hill toward them, “but didn’t recognize him because he was so big and so strong, but you could see this powerful person running toward us. And this was Josh. He was preparing to go overseas. He’d been lifting weights and running. That was just him.”

As a boy, Klukie would play basketball on a strip of old highway along Lakeshore Drive where a neighbour had put up nets.

“You’d hear the thump, thump, thumping of the ball as Josh went by. He would spend literally hours practising.

“He just honed his skill, whatever it was.”

Hillcrest principal Steve Daniar recalled the jovial Klukie always with a group of people, and always wearing a smile.

A smart kid whose grades were high in everything from academic classes to tech courses, he could have done anything he wanted, said Daniar.

“He was always that guy looking for adventure,” he said.

“That boy left us way too soon.”

An online collection of condolences and memories of Klukie is available at www.legacy.com.