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September 2008 |
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By WILLIAM LANEY
Managing Editor
Confirmation of West Nile Virus in the area is concerning to local health officials, an Auglaize County health authority says, but all their advice to area residents is to remain vigilant.
Since West Nile Virus was first detected in the state in 2001, Auglaize County Health Commissioner Charlotte Parsons said county departments have been placed on alert by the state. She is more concerned now with a positive identification in Allen County.
“When we know it is this close, we just try to remind people to try to prevent contact with mosquitoes if at all possible,” Parsons told the Wapakoneta Daily News Friday in a telephone interview. “We don’t conduct any sprayings and I think most of the municipalities that do conduct sprayings are finished for the year.” |
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Thursday, 03 July 2008 |
Military enhances meaning of families’ Fourth of July
 Sgt. First Class Joe Vires and his niece, 19-year-old Alyshia Moore, both are members of the Army National Guard. (Photo provided)
By KAREN CAMPBELL
Staff Writer
For some people the Fourth of July has always been about picnics and fireworks, but it’s always meant more than that to Mitch Vires.
For the 13-year-old boy, it’s been about his dad.
“He’s been helping defend our country for 18 years now,” Mitch said of his father, Joe Vires, a full-time supply sergeant with the U.S. Army National Guard in Columbus. “He’s a really great dad, a really good person and I’m proud of what he does.”
“They need him,” the St. Marys eighth-grader said, “but sometimes it makes it a little difficult because he has to go so many places. I miss him when he’s not here.”
He said it’s hard because sometimes his dad can’t talk on the telephone that often or he’s not always there to make sure he does stuff right or to help him when he has trouble.
“I know he has to be there though,” Mitch said. “He has a pretty important job. He has to make sure everything’s working and in order.”
The pair plan to take a special trip after celebrating with fireworks here to visit one of his father’s military friends in North Carolina.
“I think about what he does on the Fourth of July and what it means, but I kind of do that every day,” Mitch said.
Bonnie Chaffins, Mitch’s grandmother and Joe’s mother, said her son’s service, first with the Marines during Desert Storm and then in Iraq with the Army and now with a granddaughter serving in Kuwait have made her extra grateful for those who have served the country in the past and the present and will in the future.
“I’m so proud that I have a family that can do that,” Chaffins said. “It makes you really stop and think, like they say, freedom isn’t free. I wish there was some way we could just stop all of it and get all the troops home.
“Everytime Joe tells me he has to go somewhere, it terrifies me, but I know it’s what he wants to do and I’ll support that,” she said. “I still remember when he left the first time, he was just out of school and my only son. I’m very proud of him, he’s a very good man and a very dedicated soldier.”
Chaffins said her granddaughter always looked up to her uncle, Joe Vires.
“He’s been like a father to her,” she said. “She idolized what he did with his life and saw that he was really fighting for something great and that helped her make her decision to join.”
Her 19-year-old granddaughter, Alyshia Moore, a recent graduate of Memorial High School in St. Marys, is scheduled for deployment for a year, through next March, while she serves as a military policeman with the Army National Guard, something she signed on to do when she was 17.
“I pray to God every night for the safe return of all our soldiers and thank God every night for those who got to come home safe, not just on the Fourth of July” said Chaffins, whose father served in World War II and brother served during the Vietnam War. “I hope people will spend just a minute on the Fourth thinking about our veterans and give a little more meaning to the day.”
Ralph Reynolds, a Vietnam Veteran from Wapakoneta who is instrumental throughout the year organizing efforts for other area veterans as well as for patients at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Dayton, said each year the meaning of the day sinks in more and more.
“It’s a feeling that grows stronger every year, it definitely thickens in your blood,” Reynolds said. “I grew up in an orphanage home for children of veterans so I always had respect for veterans’ issues, but what changed, what I play off, is not necessarily my service, but the service of others.
“I think it’s important to spend a little time honoring our fallen and then celebrate our independence and what they gave,” he said.
Nick Doseck, an 85-year-old World War II veteran from rural New Knoxville, who’s received the Bronze and Silver stars, the Purple Heart and last year received the top French military honor for his service, said the Fourth of July means a great deal to him.
“It’s something we fought for and something we can still be proud of,” Doseck said. “I can’t help but feel more because of my service.”
He said his plans for the day included spending time with family and watching the fireworks outside his front window with his wife Barbara, but he was sure that before that he would take some time to reflect on those who didn’t make it home.
“What hits me the most is they sacrificed everything,” Doseck said. “I think we can spend a few minutes thinking of them.
“I’m still here,” he said. “I still get to enjoy what they sacrificed and died for. I’m blessed.”
He said he also feels for the soldiers serving in the Middle East now and hopes they are successful.
“I definitely think of their families and that they can’t be here,” Doseck said. “I wish I could give them a great big hug and thank them for all of us.”
Becky Johns won’t be spending the Fourth of July with her son, Tyson Knotts, a specialist serving as a maintenance mechanic with the Army in Iraq, but she plans to spend the time in Cridersville with his wife, Linda, and 4-month-old daughter, Tylin, who are visiting from out of state.
“I know he’s over there doing what he needs to do to fight for the Iraqis independence,” Johns said. “We miss him. We will say a prayer for him on the Fourth of July as we always do when people are gathered here and we’ll hope he can call.
“We’re real proud,” she said. “I don’t like to see him over there, but I know why he’s over there, for us. The day definitely has more meaning than it did before.”
Joe Voshall, a 24-year-old Army veteran who spent two years in Iraq before getting out of the service in January and joining the police academy, said with a strong family background in the military, the Fourth of July has always held special meaning, but having been deployed he understands it even better now.
“It has taken on an entirely different meaning,” Voshall said. “I think only a vet really knows the chills that run down your spine when the National Anthem plays or you see the guys marching with the flag.”
Spending the holiday with his family, including daughter Kayleen, 4, at the beach, Voshall said already she’s learning a sense of patriotism despite her age and he’ll continue to instill that in her no matter what the day.
“She sees me put up the flag every day and knows when my friends are leaving what they’re going to go do,” Voshall said. “There’s no greater love than a man willing to lay down his life for his friends. Some are born and bred to do it. Without those, the country wouldn’t be what it is.” |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 04 July 2008 )
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