An Army Special Forces commando who
grew up in Arlington Heights and was killed by mortar fire in 2004 will be
honored today in Wauconda.
A ceremony will be held at 10 a.m. in Memorial Park, 309 S. Main
St., for Major Paul R. Syverson III, who served in the opening days of the war
in Syverson's family and members of the Special Forces will be on hand as
Island Lake Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2486 is being renamed in his honor.
The
name change is being done with the consolidation of Post 2486 with Lake Zurich
VFW Post 11020, according to Mike Peck, past commander and former
superintendent of the Veterans Assistance Commission of Lake County.
"The
membership was strong; that's why we wanted to keep the post alive," Peck
said.
The
Lake Zurich VFW charter has been closed. Post 2486 does not have an official
headquarters, and the two organizations have been meeting at Wauconda American
Legion Post 911, 515 S. Main St., just south of Community Park.
Peck
hopes renaming the post in Syverson's honor will help attract younger, more
active members.
Syverson
grew up in Arlington Heights and attended John Hersey High School, where he was
a member of the 1987 state champion football team. He attended Virginia
Military Institute.
Afghanistan and saw the defeat of the
Taliban.
When CIA agent
Johnny "Mike" Spann was killed in an Afghanistan prison uprising,
Syverson was one of the Special Forces commandos sent in to retrieve his body
and curtail the intense fighting, according to his obituary.
He
was one of five soldiers injured in the November 2001 uprising by a misguided
U.S. bomb, and he received a Purple Heart.
Syverson,
who served with 5th Special Forces Group, was transferred to Iraq. He was
killed by mortar fire June 16, 2004, at a U.S. base north of Baghdad where he
stopped to buy equipment for fellow soldiers from the 5th Special Forces Group
based at Fort Campbell, according to the obituary. He was 32.
Today's
ceremony will be unique in the it will be held next to the Heroes of Freedom
Memorial near Route 176 and Main Street, which was dedicated in 2015, Peck said.
It features a wall listing the names of the people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and a beam from one of the fallen World Trade Center buildings.
© Daily
Herald, Author Mick Zawislak, Senior Writer, 2022
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