High school teacher Andrew Berry brought in two U.S. Navy officers for "show and tell" last week, providing his history class students with a real-life introduction to their next topic of study, America as a world power.
One of the officers just happened to be his son, Lt. Mason Berry, USN, who was accompanied by his girlfriend, Ensign Molly Meyerink, USN.
Lt. Mason Berry at the head of a history class at the regional high school last week.
Photo by Taylor Smith
Lt. Berry, a helicopter pilot stationed in Guam, arrived home on leave March 16, after being away from Martha's Vineyard in military service for almost three years. Not one to waste a good classroom resource, his dad talked him and Ensign Meyerink, who is based in San Diego, into giving presentations about the Navy and their experiences to five history classes last Thursday and Friday at Martha's Vineyard Regional High School.
Lt. Berry's anecdotes about his experiences as a helicopter pilot, Ensign Meyerink's descriptions of life aboard a ship, some video clips and slides held an 11th grade history class spellbound during a presentation last Friday at 12:40 pm.
Providing some background, Lt. Berry, age 27, said he graduated from Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., the same one President Barack Obama's daughters attend.
"It's a Quaker School - Quakers, if they are anything at all, are pacifists - conscientious objectors - so immediately upon graduating from there, I decided to join the military," Lt. Berry said with a laugh.
He received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., graduated in 2004 with a degree in systems engineering, and service-selected the career path of U.S. Navy pilot.
Lt. Berry spent about two years in Pensacola, Fla., where he trained as a pilot, and then spent about a year in San Diego before being sent to Guam.
Lt. Mason Berry, USN, onboard the MH-60S helicopter he piloted in Kuwait.
Photo courtesy of Lt. Berry
His first deployments included participation in Operation Talisman Saber, a joint exercise with the Australian Navy, and service as an MH-60S helicopter pilot in support of the Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier battle group in the Pacific.
After returning to Guam for about six months, Lt. Berry was deployed to northern Kuwait, where he piloted an MH-60S helicopter in medevac missions for all of Kuwait, southern Iraq, and the northern Arabian Gulf for nine months.
In describing conditions in Iraq, Lt. Berry said daytime desert temperatures rose to about 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and up to 140 degrees inside the aircraft. With 30- to 40-knot winds blowing in the summer, he said, "It was like holding a blow-dryer in front of your face all day long - on high heat."
A picture he took of a sandstorm blowing in at his base looked like a charcoal grey wall of billowing smoke hundreds of feet high. "What do you do during a sandstorm?" one student asked.
"You're still expected to come in and do office work, but you can't fly," Lt. Berry told her.
Students - and this reporter - gasped at his photos of desert "critters," including sand vipers, scorpions, and the most horrific of all, camel spiders, which looked like a land-based version of Alaskan king crabs.
Ensign Molly Meyerink, USN, and Lt. Mason Berry, USN.
Photo by Janet Hefler
One video clip that wowed the audience showed a helicopter flight viewed through a pair of $15,000 night goggles. Another impressive clip showed Lt. Berry landing a helicopter sideways on a ship.
"Can you imagine doing some of that stuff, flying sideways?" exclaimed student Erik Dolliver.
"I would love to do that," classmate Seneca Craig responded.
Most of the questions asked by students - particularly males - were mechanical in nature. "Have you ever seen a helicopter flip?" "What kind of controls are on a helicopter?"
In sharing her story, Ensign Meyerink noted that her path to service on the seas started in Nebraska.
"There was no ocean there, but I knew I wanted to join the Navy," she said.
After signing up for the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps as a junior in high school, Ensign Meyerink received a full scholarship to the University of Illinois.
She was deployed two weeks after she graduated with a degree in speech/communications, and spent four months in the Persian Gulf. In her two years in the Navy, Ensign Meyerink said she has "been all over," and has participated in three multi-nation exercises.
At age 23, the girl who grew up near waves of grain now steers a 567-ft. cruiser through ocean swells. As a surface warfare officer, Ensign Meyerink is one of only eight women among a crew of 360 who serve aboard the U.S.S. Princeton (CG 59), a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser.
"A big part of daily life is preparing for emergencies - we have to train every day so we know what to do when the worst happens," Ensign Meyerink said.
"It's kind of fun sometimes, too," she added. "I compare it to summer camp." That is, if one considers shooting off a cannon or a man-overboard drill as just another afternoon pastime.
In describing the U.S. military's role to students, Lt. Berry described it as "a tool for the government, a way for them to enforce their foreign policies around the globe - we do that by power projection, by sending large amounts of military forces around the world, for a show of force for the rest of the globe."
The Navy's role also includes ensuring freedom of the seas, fighting piracy, and conducting humanitarian operations, he explained. "A lot of the stuff you're wearing, a lot of the goods that you purchase on a regular basis, still come to the United States via ship," Lt. Berry noted.
After last Friday's presentation, Mr. Dolliver said he thought it was excellent. "I didn't know fully what our military was capable of, and seeing all of the technology and capabilities of the Navy was really an eye-opener - plus, it was great hearing about it from a pilot first hand."
Lt. Berry's visit was not all work and no play, however. Last Saturday, his dad and mom, Peyton Berry, hosted a party for him, attended by his sisters Marcie and Emily, his grandparents, several extended family members, and friends.
After heading back to Guam on March 28, Lt. Berry hopes to return to the States in a year to serve as a Navy helicopter flight instructor - in San Diego, of course.
