Mark (Jara) Jaroszynski The last time that I saw Jara was in 1984 when we were
both on our fitter’s courses. It was just a quick hello as I was leaving. Jara
was another character on the squadron. The good thing about 20 Sqn and being
single was that everyone socialized with each other. Jara was no exception. The
married people will be saying, ‘well we did too!’ and your right. Hence why I
am here getting this thing together. Does anyone remember ‘maltesers and mars bars?’ Who was
his girlfriend at the time? Jara eventually went on to marry someone. I hope to
track her down. I had spent 1997 until 2003 at RAF St Athan on Jag Majors
with the MoD. Because of my enquiries, I found that Jara died whilst serving at
Saints and I never knew it! Jara was a
Cpl at saints and is supposed to have died in a motorbike accident. I have
still to get this confirmed. He died on the 22nd of March 2001 and will be
dearly missed. Update... According to Dave Lee, (the old one, if anyone remembers
the two). Dave bumped into Jara in '89 at 8 sqn-saints. He informed Dave that
he was leaving the air force. Whilst working at Fleetlands, Dave was informed by an old
pal Stu, that Jara had died of Lymph gland cancer. They had given him a RAF
funeral with Stu as one of the bearers. Stu said that Jara had the last laugh by having one of the
Blues Brothers songs played at the service. From Stu... Hi 20 Sqn Jags, I'm the Stu that Dave Lee mentioned in his update on Jaro,
as an ex Sgt sooty working on 8 Sqn (EROS) at St Athan I knew Jaro quite well,
he worked as a Cpl in the RB199 build area and I ran the processing section
(clean NDT Inspection). Jaro died of
stomach cancer shortly after his 40th birthday, the RAF were extremely good in
the fact that they didn't let him go at 40 as was his plan, due to the nature
of his illness they kept him on, for a while it appeared that he was beating
it, then it came back with a vengeance! Jaro was given a full military funeral in the Station
church followed by cremation at Bridgend, it was at the Crem that he had
"Everybody" by the Blues Brothers played at the end of the
service. He had a full Honour guard and
as the coffin disappeared a lone trumpeter played the last post........ not a
dry eye in the place! He was carried by
myself (Stu Gibson), CT Brian Jones, Sgt Mick Foster, Cpl Ian Smith, Cpl Martin
Simmons and unfortunaly I can't recall who the last pall bearer was. This was my last official duty before leaving the RAF and
it was heartbreaking, as we took his coffin from the hearse all you could hear
were his children saying "I want my daddy", the church was absolutely
packed as was the crematorium, the Honour Guard were told to return to the bus
with the weapons once the coffin had entered the crem, they refused and left a
rock ape guarding the weapons so that they could line the walls of the crem for
the rest of the service. Jaro was a character who is missed by all who he worked or
came into contact with. PS hope you don't mind my ramblings but I thought I'd
put the story straight for Jaro's sake ....You have and I thank you for that!
