6 THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
JULY 6-JULY 12,2005
Junior set to leave for Iraq this month
Mike Berry, Lawrence junior, helps his brother, Mall'k, 3, brush the dust off his car. Mike bought his Pontiac V6 GT in March and makes sure to keep it as clean as possible.
BY ASHLEY MICHAELS amichaels@kansan.com KANSAN STAFF WRITER
Games of army and cops-and-robbers were not a part of his childhood, and it was never his dream to go to a foreign country and fight for a cause he didn't believe in.
Yet that is exactly what Mike Berry, Lawrence junior, is preparing to do this summer.
"I don't want to die for anyone," said Spc. Berry. "This is not a cause I want to die for."
In fact, he never even wanted to be in the army.
"The only reason I joined was for college money." said the 24-year-old sports management major.
Berry leaves July 14 for Sioux City, Iowa, for three weeks to attend "training that everyone has to go through before they go to Iraq," as Berry put it. After training he heads to Fort Riley, Kan., for an undisclosed amount of time. When he
The first time Jackson got the news that her son was going to Iraq she said, "I felt quite a bit of fear for him, it was the beginning, there was a lot of danger, I was just fearful."
The first time he was called up, he trained for 3 months, got sent home and never made it to Iraq, Berry said.
Finding out that you are going to another country to fight in a war is not news you hear everyday, but for Berry it's not unusual news. This is the second time he's been called up, said Dara Jackson, Berry's mother.
finishes his time at Fort Riley, it is just a waiting game to find out when he will get shipped off to Iraq, most likely later this year, Berry said.
Now she's used to getting the bad news and has found ways to deal with it, she said.
"He will go and have whatever experience he is supposed to have and come back and move on with his life," Jackson said. "I've learned to pray about it and trust God for the outcome. I'm fearless