Lance Cpl. Blaise A. Oleski

Lance Cpl. Blaise A. Oleski, 22, of Holland Patent, N.Y., died April 8 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.  He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

By EMERSON CLARRIDGE Observer-Dispatch Posted Apr 08, 2009 @ 05:01 PM Last update Apr 09, 2009 @ 09:28 AM

FLOYD — On a day when the name of one slain Marine was just leaving the lips of the residents here, word came Wednesday that a comrade, too, was gone. And again they lowered the flags in this tiny town to half-staff. The tragic news came to the 22-year-old’s parents in the predawn hours at their home on East Floyd Road. Lance Cpl. Blaise Oleski, a 2004 Holland Patent High School graduate and member of its wrestling team, was dead. He was killed in Afghanistan As the news trickled out that two Marines whose families were separated by 12 miles had died more than a week apart, residents said they weren’t ready to face another tragedy. “You don’t expect it to ever happen, and then when it happens within a week and a half, two weeks, you know, it’s just not – it’s not right,” Oleski’s neighbor, Dorothea Iselo, said. Just 10 days ago, tears ran across the face of Oleski’s mother, Theresa, at the funeral of Lance Cpl. Daniel Geary, a Rome native killed March 20. Now it’s her own son. Iselo remembered the pain on Theresa Oleski’s face that day and rushed across the street to her house Wednesday upon hearing the news. “I can still see her face at church,” Iselo said. “I think that’s why I had to go right over there because I could still see her face.” Oleski’s parents – Paul and Theresa — were on a sad journey Wednesday to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to be there when their son’s coffin arrives, friends of the family said