Army Pfc. Mathew Brady carries a wrinkled ticket stub from an MSU men's basketball game in the left breast pocket of his desert camouflage uniform.
It was with him on his mother's birthday in November when an enemy soldier fired a grenade at his army convoy's Humvee south of Baghdad.
Brady's mother, Cindy, received a call on her cell phone and said her face must have gone white when she answered.
"After I heard 'This is sergeant,' I didn't even hear the name," she said. "I thought they were going to tell me he was dead."
Her son was alive, but the attack left him with a concussion, brain swelling and hearing loss. He has since received the Purple Heart, the country's oldest military decoration awarded to soldiers who have been wounded or killed in combat.
The ticket stub Brady carried is now his good luck charm.
Brady was planning to trade in his body armor and gun for textbooks and a backpack this fall. But when Pentagon officials announced all active-duty soldiers in Iraq would see their one-year tours extended to 15 months, his start as an MSU student was delayed.
Because of the tour extensions, Brady will carry his lucky stub for another six months, when he is now scheduled to return home. When he makes his return to East Lansing for spring semester, Brady said the first thing he's looking forward to doing is getting his hands on another ticket.
"I can't wait to go to an MSU basketball game, but finally be down in the Izzone," he said, in an interview conducted through instant messenger. "I followed their season closely while I was over here."
A Spartan fan since he moved to Michigan in seventh grade, Brady met with admissions officials during his two-week leave in February. When he returned to Iraq, he called home before his first patrol and his mother told him he was accepted.
The 20 year old hadn't applied to any other schools.
"I don't want a degree unless it's from MSU. Anything else is not up to par with my standards for myself."
Troop Extension
While Brady was disappointed his college days would be delayed another semester, he said coming home to his family has been his greatest concern.
"My dad once told me that he won't get a good night's sleep until I'm home again," he said.
After getting home to his family in November, he plans to pursue a teaching degree and one day become a high school history teacher. Brady's mom said her son's interest in history is something he shares with his father.
"Through high school, he wanted to do everything," she said. "But teaching was always the idea he came back to, so I think that will stick."
Brady pursued a scholarship as a wrestler, contemplated becoming a dairy farmer and considered the maple syrup business before joining the army, Cindy Brady said.
Along with studying to become a history or government teacher, Brady plans to be involved with the MSU Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps, or ROTC. He hopes to use his real-life combat experience to give ROTC members an alternative to training from textbooks.
Army Lt. Col. Thomas DeFilippo, chair of the MSU Department of Military Science, met with Brady during his two-week leave in February.
"He seemed like a solid young man, and we were looking forward to starting him in the program," DeFilippo said. "Now, it just looks like that will be in January rather than in the fall."
War Hardships
During a May 12 attack that left four American soldiers dead and three missing, Brady was working as a radio transmitter at a tactical operation center south of Baghdad.
Five days later, on the morning the army released the names of the dead, Brady saw one of them was a friend from basic training. Shocked, he stepped outside and smoked a few cigarettes to calm himself down.
Just minutes later, Brady stepped back into his office when an alarming message came over the radio line. An attack had occurred and Brady was to relay the information to medical evacuation helicopters that rush killed or wounded soldiers to a hospital.
When Brady saw what company was hit, his heart dropped.
It was his old platoon. His former team leader, Army Sgt. Steven Packer, had stepped on an improvised explosion device, or IED.
After rushing to his old company's command post to see how Packer was doing, he was met with the news that Packer, who was serving on his third tour in Iraq, didn't survive. He died shortly after his arrival to the hospital in Baghdad.
"I threw up and started crying," Brady said. "Sgt. Packer was a good soldier and an even better person. I can't think of anyone who deserved this less than him. It really couldn't have happened to a better man."
Brady didn't go back to work that night and took the next day off. He went to the airport and carried Packer's casket onto a plane that had seven flag-draped caskets in it. Brady said he has yet to get the image out of his head.
Before the plane left, he and some fellow soldiers kneeled around Packer's casket, where they prayed and cried. Every day, he walks by a wall memorial on his way to work to honor his fallen friend.
"He was a silent professional," Brady said. "He did what he had to and never was loud about what he had done."
Changed Man
Cindy Brady keeps in contact with her son through her computer.
She maintains the family farm in Mason to keep her mind off of not having her youngest son around, whom she describes as a "happy-go-lucky kid" before he left for war.
Now her son has a more serious demeanor, she said. He's grown-up, learned a lot about himself and gained a new perspective on life, she said.
"Being over there and seeing the hardships that people have and having buddies hurt and killed - it's really changed him," she said.
