Aged care specialist visits SLESA

A group of aged care specialists headed by Dr Devi Ranasinghe, an aged care specialist in the Australian government who has embarked on a training programme for aged care workers in Sri Lanka, visited the SLESA Secretariat on June 28 accompanied by Major Ramani Kangararachchi and met President, SLESA Captain Patrick Jayasinghe and Major General (Dr.) Dudley Perera regarding the training of personnel from Ex-Servicemen's Association on the caring of elders.

A visit to Bolagala Veteran's Home was organized for the team and the Veterans' Home Committee Member Major Niroshani Fernando accompanied them. A programme was conducted by Dr. Devi Ranasinghe giving many important points on elders care, who also spent time talking to inmates sharing their views.

She also proposed a documentation system and promised to submit an action plan shortly. Dr. Ranasinghe is scheduled to meet the Advisory Board of the Veterans' Home on July 6 at the SLESA Secretariat.

Medical camp at Dambulla

Sri Lanka Army Medical Corps Association will conduct a Poly Clinic at Devahuwa, Dambulla on July 14 from 0900 hrs.

Devahuwa is a village which has a large population of low income villagers. A medical camp is organized by Land and Lands Development Minister Janaka Bandara Tennakoon.

A group of personnel led by Maj. Gen. (Dr.) Dudley Perera President, Sr Lanka Army Medical Corps Association and Secretary Major Sisira Godamune along with medical officers, nurses, pharmacists, health inspectors including many professional of the Association will participate. On this day, channeling for special treatments, eye inspections and providing spectacles, blood tests and health education will be conducted.

War memorial poppy project meeting

The inaugural meeting of the Poppy Project was held on June 22 at the SLESA Secretariat.

The meeting was chaired by Air Vice Marshal Rohitha Ranasinghe, newly appointed Chairman, AFRD and Poppy Committee.

Capt. Patrick Jayasinghe, President, SLESA introduced the new Chairman to the committee members and briefed the committee on the requirement of a new programme to facilitate the success of this project.

The Chairman emphasized the importance of publicity and that all should actively participate in this programme. The Poppy Committee comprises AVMR Ranasinghe (Chairman), Maj. Gen. KAMG Kularatne and Read Admiral D Dharmapriya as Co-Chairmen with 26 committee members from Affiliated Associations. Brig. KA Gnanaweera, Hony. Secretary General, SLESA also participated in the meeting.

Barrow - no more

G.A. Barrow, World War II Veteran and Vice Patron, CRNVR Association passed away recently. He was an active member who held several important appointments in the CRNVR Association.

Memories of a war veteran

Many people came to this place (Treptow Park) arriving in families in groups or individually, and they all carried flowers. There were many middle aged and old people. An old couple in black walked by followed by some schoolchildren. Weren't they the children Abyzov had seen in Under den Linden and Friedrich's Strasse early that morning?

Then they saw some young lads in dark blue jackets and berets with big bright red.

"Who are they?" Abyzov asked. "French Sailors," said someone. There were also many soviet Servicemen both officers and men and this was not surprising. They had to keep their armed forces in the fraternal German Democratic Republic, because NATO's forces are right next door, and their missiles are trained on the countries of the socialist community. When in 1977 the G.D.R. celebrated it's 30th Anniversary, the USSR declared that it was ready to cut down the numerical strength of it's forces stationed in the G.D.R. by 20,000 officers and men and 1,000 tanks.

However, the leaders of the Western powers, mainly United States, responded to their (Soviet) peaceful initiative with plans to further increase their unclear missiles potential. Late in 1983 the siting of U.S. medium range missiles began in Western Europe. This forced the USSR and other socialist countries to take answering measures to ensure their security.

In the spring of 1984, the USSR Defence Ministry declared that in view of the continuing build-up of the US medium range missiles in Western Europe and in accordance with an agreement between the Governments of the Soviet Union and the G.D.R., an additional number of Soviet tactical missiles complexes with an increased range of operation would be sited as an answering measure on the territory of the German Democratic Republic.

In future too, the states number of the Warsaw Treaty will take answering measures strictly within the limits necessary to maintain the balance of forces and to neutralize the damage to the USSR and its allies, emanating, in particular, from the direction of the siting of the new US missiles.

In his day Georigi Zukov a distinguished military leader of the Second World War wrote; "One day's lag in the last war cost us a heavy price. In the event of a crisis today, time will be counted in seconds."

On Sunday morning they went to Potsdam. The taxi driver looked straight ahead and Abyzov looked to his right. In the distance he saw TV towers. It seemed as if they were not driving away from it, but were tied to it and the car appeared to be describing and arc around it. In fact, they were making a detour of West Berlin.

First they went to Sans Souce, this corner of the earth was beautiful indeed, a creation of outstanding German masers, architects, builders and gardeners.

The number of lanes in the old park was infinite and there were many fanciful, gracefully decorated pavilions. There were broad vistas sinking into the blue mist beyond, opening out from a hill with a palace on it.

The Hohenzollerns know how and where to build.

To be continued