| Gary
Barling |
 I
was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. After receiving my
qualification as a teacher I taught for a year, and then joined the
Canadian Army. I retired in 1999 after thirty-six years’ service. My
wife Sharon and I were married in 1973, and we have two grown sons,
Ken and Chris. Over the years I have served throughout Canada, and spent
two years in Germany and a year in Bosnia. I’ve visited the United States
during courses and on battlefield tours, particularly several to Gettysburg.
I built my first model, an Aurora 1/48th (more or less) Hellcat in 1956. Since then, I’ve built models ranging from US Civil War cannon to dinosaurs, from armoured vehicles (I was in tanks and reconnaissance) to World War One and Two aircraft, to modern jets. My main field of modeling interest is Canadian military aircraft, with a strong minor in the aircraft of Pearl Harbor. It is this latter topic that brought me to J-Aircraft. I joined IPMS Canada in 1965 (the fourteenth person to do so: yes, I am that old!). I was extremely fortunate to visit the IPMS USA Nationals in Dallas, and to meet several of the J-Aircraft members. In other areas, I’m active
as a supply teacher in the local schools and as our church historian.
I completed a degree program in military history from our Royal Military
College of Canada in 2002, and I provide unskilled labour to my "horticulturally-gifted"
wife in our garden. I still keep my hand in at military instruction
in the form of working with tactical computer-simulation training
at the nearby Canadian Army base. |
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