Major Paeta Hess-Von Kruedener
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RIP Sir,
Pro Patria
&
Militi Succurrimus
Pro Patria
&
Militi Succurrimus
Colin Parkinson
Army.ca Relic
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LCIS-Tech said:
If he was there then, I might have met him, It would be nice if he turned up live, but I am afraid that is unlikely, RIP
1
17thRecceSgt
Guest
RIP Sir 
My condolences to the family, friends, and loved ones.
http://news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/TopStories/ContentPosting.aspx?newsitemid=CTVNews%2f20060729%2fUN_observer_060730&feedname=CTV-TOPSTORIES_V2&showbyline=True
UN observer confirmed dead in last week's strike
31/07/2006 2:05:51 PM
The body of missing Canadian UN observer Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener has been found -- almost a week after his observation base in southern Lebanon was hit during an Israeli air strike.
CTV.ca News Staff
This photo released by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, shows a UN observation post that was damaged after it was hit by the Israeli air strike.
Maj. Hess-von Kruedener, 43, was killed along with three other UN observers after Israeli jets bombarded the town of Khiam, near the eastern end of Lebanon's border, on July 25.
The bodies of three soldiers from Austrian, China and Finland were found shortly after the attack, but Hess-von Kruedener, a father of two grown children, remained missing until a body was positively identified as his on Monday.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he was "deeply saddened" to learn of Hess-von Kruedener's death.
"On behalf of the Government of Canada, I extend my profound sympathy to the family, friends and loved ones of this brave soldier, who served our country with distinction and honour," Harper said in a statement released Monday.
Last week, Hess-von Kruedener's family were hopeful he had survived the attack.
"I kind of equate it to an earthquake in India," his sister Tonya Hess told CTV Newsnet on Saturday.
"They pull people out after seven days. I think it's possible, and not only that, I believe that it is going to happen. I have full faith that he's going to be returned."
Bombing was "intentional"
Israel insisted the bombing was an accident, despite UN observers repeatedly warning the Israeli military about their location.
However, Hess-von Kruedener's wife, Cynthia, accused the Israeli military of deliberately attacking her husband's observer post.
"So why were the Israelis firing on that base? ... In my opinion, those were precision-guided missiles, so the attack was intentional," she told reporters outside her Kingston, Ont. home Thursday.
She also said that Israel had attacked the area several times before, "for weeks upon weeks," according to her husband. Her comments add fuel to the controversy over the bombing, which has included allegations from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that the observers were deliberately targeted by Israel.
It's an allegation that has been vigorously denied by Israeli officials who insist on calling the incident "a tragic mistake."
At the heart of it lies information that has come out over the past few days that UN observers in Lebanon phoned the Israelis at least 10 times over a six-hour period pleading for the shelling of the position to stop.
When it became evident the shelling wasn't going to stop, the base commander called top UN officials in New York.
Ireland has filed an official protest over the incident as six of those specific phone warnings came from Lt.-Col. John Molloy, a senior Irish UN peacekeeper whose job was to liaise with the Israel Defence Forces.
On Saturday, two peacekeepers were wounded when an Israeli strike hit their UN station. UN observers had recently been relocated to peacekeepers' posts for their own safety.
Hess-von Kruedener had completed nine months of his one-year tour of duty with the UN in Lebanon.
He was an infantry officer with 20 years service and had done four earlier operational tours in Cyprus, twice in Bosnia, and Congo.
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R.I.P., Sir. My heartfelt condolences to the family and friends. I have seen both his wife and sister make appeals on the news over the last few days and it breaks to my heart that their prayers will not be answered. Hopefully they will find solace in the fact that he died with honour and his bravery will live on in soldiers he has trained and trained with. God speed soldier.
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Eleven years ago, FT-Ex of my section commanders' course, setting up a convoy ambush. I was bagged out, and was about to take a wrong turn at a glow-stick marker when the platoon commander, (then Captain) Hess-Von Kruedener grabbed me by the arm and said, “Get your head out of your a**!”
Yes, sir.
Thank you for pointing me in the right direction, sir.
Rest in peace, sir.
Condolences to your family, sir.
Yes, sir.
Thank you for pointing me in the right direction, sir.
Rest in peace, sir.
Condolences to your family, sir.
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Never worked for the man but knew some who did and they had nothing but the highest regards for him. Used to see him at the gym here in Kingston every now and then and seemed to be an extremely professional soldier. My condolences to his family and friends.
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http://www.thewhig.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=139930&catname=Local+News&classif=
'Paeta was totally fearless'
Brock Harrison
Local News - Thursday, August 03, 2006 @ 07:00
Shirlee and Gerry Hess had no idea how much of a thrill-seeker their teenage son had become until the day the morning paper landed on the porch of their Sudbury home.
"On the front page of the Sudbury Star, we saw a picture of our son doing a handstand on his skateboard, going down the steepest slope at the university without a helmet or any pads on," says Shirlee Hess, gently laughing as she recalls the memory.
"We knew of his total enthusiasm about it. We didn't know how far it had taken him."
Shirlee Hess now equates that image of Paeta Hess-von Kruedener with how he approached his entire 43 years on Earth: full-tilt and adventure-hungry.
"Paeta was totally fearless," she told The Whig-Standard this week. "From the time he was a child, he didn't know fear."
Hess von-Kruedener - "Wolf," to his buddies - a 43-year-old brother, son, husband and father, was killed last week when an Israeli bomb hit the United Nations' outpost at which he was stationed near the Israel-Lebanon border. The Kingston officer was one of four unarmed international observers of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. Maj. Hess von-Kruedener's remains will be brought back to Canada tomorrow.
His mother heard from him regularly until the end.
"He always kept in touch. He called his daughter [Kirsten], he called [wife] Cynthia and he called me," Shirlee Hess said. "Or he'd e-mail us. He always let us know he was doing well."
Born in London, Ont., Paeta Hess-von Kruedener was an energetic child. His curly red locks and freckle-dotted face illuminate a family photo album Shirlee Hess shared with The Whig-Standard.
In the pages of the album, father Gerry's camera shutter captures, with remarkable poignancy, the exuberance of Paeta's childhood. Whether wrestling his dog Bozo, jump-kicking the air in his white karate uniform, or just posing for the camera, Paeta's face shows nothing but joy.
"He was very adventuresome and always a gregarious person," Shirlee said. "He was involved in life. He did everything he could."
As a child, Paeta and his sister, Tonya, put on theatrical performances for anyone who would watch - usually mom and dad - wrapped up in authentic stage costumes obtained by Gerry, who did work for a theatre company in Sudbury.
Paeta was hyperactive. But Shirlee circumvented her son's inborn restlessness by reading him novels by American writer Jack London. London was one of the most romantic figures of his time whose own adventures mirrored how little Paeta would go on to lead his own life. London was a swimmer and sailor and did two tours of duty in South Pacific war zones. His prose often held the curious Paeta spellbound, Shirlee recalls.
He loved animals, but what Shirlee remembers most is how much animals loved him. On family vacations, even during walks home from school, stray and wandering dogs would follow Paeta.
The family photo album is littered with animal snapshots as Paeta cared for dogs and cats right up to his death. Two black-and-white border collies will forever wait their owner's return.
Shirlee says her son even adopted two mongrel dogs at his outpost in Lebanon.
"They were stray and malnourished and Paeta cared for them," she said. "I believe they were inside when that bomb hit. Paeta wouldn't have let them be out there."
By 13, Paeta had achieved a brown belt in karate, one level below black, the highest. His instructors cautioned against continuing his martial arts ascension too rapidly at such a young age.
He was resourceful. In their Sudbury neighbourhood, Paeta mowed lawns, shovelled snow and delivered newspapers to scrape together enough spending money to feed his growing interest in all things adventurous.
He put that money to use on projects such as building what his mother says was Sudbury's very first skateboard park.
The young man also skied, swam and sailed. A gifted athlete and natural leader, Paeta played hockey, basketball and baseball.
When he was a minor hockey player, the Ontario Hockey League's Sudbury Wolves courted and coveted strapping young Paeta. Shirlee and Gerry put their feet down, however.
"It was so violent, so his father and I decided against it," Shirlee said. "Needless to say, that wasn't a happy scene."
At 18, after nine months enrolled with Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau's new Katimavik community-building program, Paeta left the lakes, forests and piles of friends he had come to love in Sudbury and headed west. Destination: The Alberta tar sands, where jobs and money flowed as freely as the black gold being pumped out.
He went to "make his fortune," Shirlee recalls, but was turned away at every oil company door. Paeta was too young.
Rejected, but thirsting for adventure, Paeta moved to Winnipeg, where he worked at odd jobs. There, an older male friend got him interested in the military.
Around this time, Paeta Hess's snappy three-syllable name also took on a strong hint of German-Russian nobility.
Paeta's grandmother - his "Omi," as he called her - was the matriarch of the von Kruedeners, whose bloodline can be traced back to the fighting forces of Catherine The Great. None of her five sons, including Paeta's father, Gerry, had wanted to assume her clunky maiden name, opting instead for the crisp and clean "Hess."
But at the request of his Omi, Paeta obliged, happily hyphenating his surname. The gruff-sounding moniker may have led to Paeta being dubbed "Wolf" by his friends. Shirlee still isn't quite sure why.
"We're still hashing that one out," she said.
After joining the military, Paeta accepted postings in Edmonton, Winnipeg and Quebec, where his only child, daughter Kirsten, was born to Paeta and his first wife. Kirsten now lives in Burlington.
He met his second wife, Cynthia, through a support group for single parents. Cynthia had a son, Jonah Rosson, from a previous marriage.
Shirlee said Paeta cared for Rosson as if he were his own blood and taught him valuable life skills he never had before they met.
"Paeta was his father in every way except biological," Shirlee said. Paeta and Cynthia married in 1997 and spent time posted at CFB Edmonton, where he was a member of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, before he was posted to Kingston in 2001.
He became an instructor at the base's Peace Support Training Centre. Eventually, he was its top instructor, said a former colleague.
"I've been getting e-mails over my Blackberry from soldiers who remember him as their instructor," said Maj. Lindsay Reinelt, who lived with Paeta in a two-bedroom apartment in the city of Kinshasa in the Congo when the two of them served there.
"His influence and his impact was so significant that he is the only one they remembered from their training."
Adds Reinelt: "You'd think that it would be impossible to give everything you've got to everything you did. But Wolf did."
As a Canadian peacekeeper, Paeta toured Bosnia, Zaire and Congo, never failing to keep his family updated. While in Lebanon, he sent Cynthia e-mails describing the intensity of Israel's air strikes in the days leading up to his death.
"He always told us he loved us," Shirlee said.
The last fond memory Shirlee will keep of her son happened May 25.
It was her husband's birthday and Paeta couldn't call home because he was in Lebanon. Or so Gerry thought.
In fact, Paeta had taken a break from the mission to come back to Canada and visit family for what would prove the last time.
"Gerry said that was the most joyful present he could have been given," Shirlee said. "To hear that Paeta was in Canada and could call and wish him a happy birthday."
Over the past few days, Shirlee has read scores of accolades for her son from his military colleagues.
She believes them all. Paeta was a soldier held in the highest esteem by everyone with whom he worked.
But it's the boy who did backflips into swimming pools, the teenager who built his own skateboards and the man who loved his daughter and family above all else whom Shirlee will remember most.
She says Paeta was never afraid to speak to his family even about the unspeakable. Now that the unspeakable has happened, it is Shirlee Hess who is speaking out.
"There's just so much to say about Paeta."
[email protected]
City to honour peacekeepers
The city has declared next Wednesday Peacekeepers Day in Kingston, coinciding with the greatest single loss of Canadian lives on a peacekeeping mission.
On Aug. 9, 1974, nine Canadians died when their transport plane was shot down by Syria. The contingent carried supplies as part of the United Nations Emergency Force in Egypt and Israel.
'Paeta was totally fearless'
Brock Harrison
Local News - Thursday, August 03, 2006 @ 07:00
Shirlee and Gerry Hess had no idea how much of a thrill-seeker their teenage son had become until the day the morning paper landed on the porch of their Sudbury home.
"On the front page of the Sudbury Star, we saw a picture of our son doing a handstand on his skateboard, going down the steepest slope at the university without a helmet or any pads on," says Shirlee Hess, gently laughing as she recalls the memory.
"We knew of his total enthusiasm about it. We didn't know how far it had taken him."
Shirlee Hess now equates that image of Paeta Hess-von Kruedener with how he approached his entire 43 years on Earth: full-tilt and adventure-hungry.
"Paeta was totally fearless," she told The Whig-Standard this week. "From the time he was a child, he didn't know fear."
Hess von-Kruedener - "Wolf," to his buddies - a 43-year-old brother, son, husband and father, was killed last week when an Israeli bomb hit the United Nations' outpost at which he was stationed near the Israel-Lebanon border. The Kingston officer was one of four unarmed international observers of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. Maj. Hess von-Kruedener's remains will be brought back to Canada tomorrow.
His mother heard from him regularly until the end.
"He always kept in touch. He called his daughter [Kirsten], he called [wife] Cynthia and he called me," Shirlee Hess said. "Or he'd e-mail us. He always let us know he was doing well."
Born in London, Ont., Paeta Hess-von Kruedener was an energetic child. His curly red locks and freckle-dotted face illuminate a family photo album Shirlee Hess shared with The Whig-Standard.
In the pages of the album, father Gerry's camera shutter captures, with remarkable poignancy, the exuberance of Paeta's childhood. Whether wrestling his dog Bozo, jump-kicking the air in his white karate uniform, or just posing for the camera, Paeta's face shows nothing but joy.
"He was very adventuresome and always a gregarious person," Shirlee said. "He was involved in life. He did everything he could."
As a child, Paeta and his sister, Tonya, put on theatrical performances for anyone who would watch - usually mom and dad - wrapped up in authentic stage costumes obtained by Gerry, who did work for a theatre company in Sudbury.
Paeta was hyperactive. But Shirlee circumvented her son's inborn restlessness by reading him novels by American writer Jack London. London was one of the most romantic figures of his time whose own adventures mirrored how little Paeta would go on to lead his own life. London was a swimmer and sailor and did two tours of duty in South Pacific war zones. His prose often held the curious Paeta spellbound, Shirlee recalls.
He loved animals, but what Shirlee remembers most is how much animals loved him. On family vacations, even during walks home from school, stray and wandering dogs would follow Paeta.
The family photo album is littered with animal snapshots as Paeta cared for dogs and cats right up to his death. Two black-and-white border collies will forever wait their owner's return.
Shirlee says her son even adopted two mongrel dogs at his outpost in Lebanon.
"They were stray and malnourished and Paeta cared for them," she said. "I believe they were inside when that bomb hit. Paeta wouldn't have let them be out there."
By 13, Paeta had achieved a brown belt in karate, one level below black, the highest. His instructors cautioned against continuing his martial arts ascension too rapidly at such a young age.
He was resourceful. In their Sudbury neighbourhood, Paeta mowed lawns, shovelled snow and delivered newspapers to scrape together enough spending money to feed his growing interest in all things adventurous.
He put that money to use on projects such as building what his mother says was Sudbury's very first skateboard park.
The young man also skied, swam and sailed. A gifted athlete and natural leader, Paeta played hockey, basketball and baseball.
When he was a minor hockey player, the Ontario Hockey League's Sudbury Wolves courted and coveted strapping young Paeta. Shirlee and Gerry put their feet down, however.
"It was so violent, so his father and I decided against it," Shirlee said. "Needless to say, that wasn't a happy scene."
At 18, after nine months enrolled with Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau's new Katimavik community-building program, Paeta left the lakes, forests and piles of friends he had come to love in Sudbury and headed west. Destination: The Alberta tar sands, where jobs and money flowed as freely as the black gold being pumped out.
He went to "make his fortune," Shirlee recalls, but was turned away at every oil company door. Paeta was too young.
Rejected, but thirsting for adventure, Paeta moved to Winnipeg, where he worked at odd jobs. There, an older male friend got him interested in the military.
Around this time, Paeta Hess's snappy three-syllable name also took on a strong hint of German-Russian nobility.
Paeta's grandmother - his "Omi," as he called her - was the matriarch of the von Kruedeners, whose bloodline can be traced back to the fighting forces of Catherine The Great. None of her five sons, including Paeta's father, Gerry, had wanted to assume her clunky maiden name, opting instead for the crisp and clean "Hess."
But at the request of his Omi, Paeta obliged, happily hyphenating his surname. The gruff-sounding moniker may have led to Paeta being dubbed "Wolf" by his friends. Shirlee still isn't quite sure why.
"We're still hashing that one out," she said.
After joining the military, Paeta accepted postings in Edmonton, Winnipeg and Quebec, where his only child, daughter Kirsten, was born to Paeta and his first wife. Kirsten now lives in Burlington.
He met his second wife, Cynthia, through a support group for single parents. Cynthia had a son, Jonah Rosson, from a previous marriage.
Shirlee said Paeta cared for Rosson as if he were his own blood and taught him valuable life skills he never had before they met.
"Paeta was his father in every way except biological," Shirlee said. Paeta and Cynthia married in 1997 and spent time posted at CFB Edmonton, where he was a member of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, before he was posted to Kingston in 2001.
He became an instructor at the base's Peace Support Training Centre. Eventually, he was its top instructor, said a former colleague.
"I've been getting e-mails over my Blackberry from soldiers who remember him as their instructor," said Maj. Lindsay Reinelt, who lived with Paeta in a two-bedroom apartment in the city of Kinshasa in the Congo when the two of them served there.
"His influence and his impact was so significant that he is the only one they remembered from their training."
Adds Reinelt: "You'd think that it would be impossible to give everything you've got to everything you did. But Wolf did."
As a Canadian peacekeeper, Paeta toured Bosnia, Zaire and Congo, never failing to keep his family updated. While in Lebanon, he sent Cynthia e-mails describing the intensity of Israel's air strikes in the days leading up to his death.
"He always told us he loved us," Shirlee said.
The last fond memory Shirlee will keep of her son happened May 25.
It was her husband's birthday and Paeta couldn't call home because he was in Lebanon. Or so Gerry thought.
In fact, Paeta had taken a break from the mission to come back to Canada and visit family for what would prove the last time.
"Gerry said that was the most joyful present he could have been given," Shirlee said. "To hear that Paeta was in Canada and could call and wish him a happy birthday."
Over the past few days, Shirlee has read scores of accolades for her son from his military colleagues.
She believes them all. Paeta was a soldier held in the highest esteem by everyone with whom he worked.
But it's the boy who did backflips into swimming pools, the teenager who built his own skateboards and the man who loved his daughter and family above all else whom Shirlee will remember most.
She says Paeta was never afraid to speak to his family even about the unspeakable. Now that the unspeakable has happened, it is Shirlee Hess who is speaking out.
"There's just so much to say about Paeta."
[email protected]
City to honour peacekeepers
The city has declared next Wednesday Peacekeepers Day in Kingston, coinciding with the greatest single loss of Canadian lives on a peacekeeping mission.
On Aug. 9, 1974, nine Canadians died when their transport plane was shot down by Syria. The contingent carried supplies as part of the United Nations Emergency Force in Egypt and Israel.
- Reaction score
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http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/newsroom/view_news_e.asp?id=2020
Media Advisory
Military Memorial Service for Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener
LFCA MA / SCFT AM 06-11 - August 9, 2006
OTTAWA, Ont. — A Military Memorial Service for Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, an Infantry Officer with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry who lost his life while serving with the UN Truce Supervision Organisation in the Khiyam area of South Lebanon, will take place at the Princess of Wales’ Own Regiment Armoury, 100 Montreal St., Kingston, Ont. on Thursday, August 10, 2006 at 10 a.m.
As per the request of the family, the news media are invited to attend, though no interviews will be given.
Many dignitaries will be present to pay their respect.
An interment ceremony will take place at the Woodland Cemetery, Spring Garden Road, between Botanical Drive and Valley Inn Road, Burlington, Ont. on Friday August 11, 2006 at 2 p.m.
Media Advisory
Military Memorial Service for Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener
LFCA MA / SCFT AM 06-11 - August 9, 2006
OTTAWA, Ont. — A Military Memorial Service for Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, an Infantry Officer with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry who lost his life while serving with the UN Truce Supervision Organisation in the Khiyam area of South Lebanon, will take place at the Princess of Wales’ Own Regiment Armoury, 100 Montreal St., Kingston, Ont. on Thursday, August 10, 2006 at 10 a.m.
As per the request of the family, the news media are invited to attend, though no interviews will be given.
Many dignitaries will be present to pay their respect.
An interment ceremony will take place at the Woodland Cemetery, Spring Garden Road, between Botanical Drive and Valley Inn Road, Burlington, Ont. on Friday August 11, 2006 at 2 p.m.
- Reaction score
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dradel I suggest a new thread or the one that has his condolences.
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I moved it.Quagmire said:
dradel, attention to detail next time. All info you seek is available in the post above the one of yours.
- Reaction score
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http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060810/memorial_peacekeeper_060810/20060810?hub=Canada
Fallen UN observer honoured in sombre memorial
Updated Thu. Aug. 10 2006 9:01 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
The Canadian UN observer killed in Lebanon last month was remembered as a larger-than-life hero who was fiercely loyal to his principles during a sombre military memorial service on Thursday.
Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener was killed along with three other observers after Israeli jets bombarded the town of Khiam, near the eastern end of Lebanon's border, on July 25.
"There is so much that I love about Paeta. And I use the present tense because his spirit and his soul is so fierce and so strong that even if he is longer in his body we know that his spirit is still with us," his grief-stricken sister Tonya Hess said at the Princess of Wales' Own Regiment Armoury in Kingston, Ont. on Thursday.
Hess described her brother as a larger-than-life hero who she believed was invincible.
"Even though I knew the job that he was doing I never would have imagined that he could have died," she said in her tearful eulogy.
She thanked the military "family'' for doing what she referred to as "putting their lives on the line all the time.''
Hess-von Kruedener's daughter Kirsten remembered her father as a gentle soul and a protective parent in a poem that she wrote called "The Tiger."
"I feel that my dad's intensity and spirit has always been embodied by the tiger," she said.
Maj.-Gen. Stuart Beare, the commander of training staff across the country, said the loss of "Wolf'' -- as he was known by his friends -- is a blow to the military family.
"We lost one of our own. We lost a brother,'' Beare said. "Ultimately in our business, his loss affects those of us who continue to serve ... but at the same time, the example he's left us inspires us to carry on.''
Hess-von Kruedener's casket was carried into the armoury by eight uniformed pallbearers, as about 500 people looked on, including his parents Shirlee and Gerry Hess.
At the end of the ceremony, the pallbearers folded the flag that had draped over the fallen UN observer's casket, while a trumpeter played Taps. Once the casket was carried into a waiting limousine, the Hess-von Kruedener received a 21-gun salute.
A member of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry for 20 years, Hess-von Kruedener was the only Canadian serving as a United Nations Military Observer in Lebanon.
The 43-year-old, who had three months remaining on his one-year mission, was stationed at a UN outpost in southern Lebanon, about 10 kilometres from where the Syrian, Lebanese and Israeli borders meet.
The attack sparked accusations Israel had deliberately launched a precision-guided missile at the UN observer post.
Israel has since apologized for the attack and said it was accidental.
The bodies of three soldiers from Austria, China and Finland were found shortly after the blast, but Hess-von Kruedener, a father of two grown children, remained missing until a body was positively identified days later.
In an e-mail written to CTV.ca one week before the bomb hit the UN outpost, Hess-von Kruedener described the battle between Hezbollah and Israeli troops as very high and continuous," with short breaks in between.
"What I can tell you is this: we have on a daily basis had numerous occasions where our position has come under direct or indirect fire from both artillery and aerial bombing," he wrote.
"The closest artillery has landed within 2 metres of our position and the closest 1000 lb aerial bomb has landed 100 metres from our patrol base. This has not been deliberate targeting, but has rather been due to tactical necessity."
On Thursday, his friends remembered him as a good-humoured soldier, and shared jokes and stories about the man they called Wolf.
Capt. Gerhart Hildebrandt, who served with Hess-von Kruedener in Cyprus, was quoted by The Canadian Press as saying his friend always wanted to look cool.
He said one of Hess von-Kruedener's mottoes was to always look good, never get lost and "if you get lost, always look good," he said to laughter.
An interment ceremony will take place at the Woodland Cemetery in Burlington, Ont. on August 11, 2006 at 2 p.m.
Fallen UN observer honoured in sombre memorial
Updated Thu. Aug. 10 2006 9:01 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
The Canadian UN observer killed in Lebanon last month was remembered as a larger-than-life hero who was fiercely loyal to his principles during a sombre military memorial service on Thursday.
Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener was killed along with three other observers after Israeli jets bombarded the town of Khiam, near the eastern end of Lebanon's border, on July 25.
"There is so much that I love about Paeta. And I use the present tense because his spirit and his soul is so fierce and so strong that even if he is longer in his body we know that his spirit is still with us," his grief-stricken sister Tonya Hess said at the Princess of Wales' Own Regiment Armoury in Kingston, Ont. on Thursday.
Hess described her brother as a larger-than-life hero who she believed was invincible.
"Even though I knew the job that he was doing I never would have imagined that he could have died," she said in her tearful eulogy.
She thanked the military "family'' for doing what she referred to as "putting their lives on the line all the time.''
Hess-von Kruedener's daughter Kirsten remembered her father as a gentle soul and a protective parent in a poem that she wrote called "The Tiger."
"I feel that my dad's intensity and spirit has always been embodied by the tiger," she said.
Maj.-Gen. Stuart Beare, the commander of training staff across the country, said the loss of "Wolf'' -- as he was known by his friends -- is a blow to the military family.
"We lost one of our own. We lost a brother,'' Beare said. "Ultimately in our business, his loss affects those of us who continue to serve ... but at the same time, the example he's left us inspires us to carry on.''
Hess-von Kruedener's casket was carried into the armoury by eight uniformed pallbearers, as about 500 people looked on, including his parents Shirlee and Gerry Hess.
At the end of the ceremony, the pallbearers folded the flag that had draped over the fallen UN observer's casket, while a trumpeter played Taps. Once the casket was carried into a waiting limousine, the Hess-von Kruedener received a 21-gun salute.
A member of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry for 20 years, Hess-von Kruedener was the only Canadian serving as a United Nations Military Observer in Lebanon.
The 43-year-old, who had three months remaining on his one-year mission, was stationed at a UN outpost in southern Lebanon, about 10 kilometres from where the Syrian, Lebanese and Israeli borders meet.
The attack sparked accusations Israel had deliberately launched a precision-guided missile at the UN observer post.
Israel has since apologized for the attack and said it was accidental.
The bodies of three soldiers from Austria, China and Finland were found shortly after the blast, but Hess-von Kruedener, a father of two grown children, remained missing until a body was positively identified days later.
In an e-mail written to CTV.ca one week before the bomb hit the UN outpost, Hess-von Kruedener described the battle between Hezbollah and Israeli troops as very high and continuous," with short breaks in between.
"What I can tell you is this: we have on a daily basis had numerous occasions where our position has come under direct or indirect fire from both artillery and aerial bombing," he wrote.
"The closest artillery has landed within 2 metres of our position and the closest 1000 lb aerial bomb has landed 100 metres from our patrol base. This has not been deliberate targeting, but has rather been due to tactical necessity."
On Thursday, his friends remembered him as a good-humoured soldier, and shared jokes and stories about the man they called Wolf.
Capt. Gerhart Hildebrandt, who served with Hess-von Kruedener in Cyprus, was quoted by The Canadian Press as saying his friend always wanted to look cool.
He said one of Hess von-Kruedener's mottoes was to always look good, never get lost and "if you get lost, always look good," he said to laughter.
An interment ceremony will take place at the Woodland Cemetery in Burlington, Ont. on August 11, 2006 at 2 p.m.
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