Army Pfc. Michael Pearson

Remember Our Heroes

Slain soldier from Bolingbrook passionate about Army life

Michael Pearson joined the Army hoping it would get him to college where he could pursue his passion: music.

But he soon became passionate about his life in the military.

"He was proud. He loved every minute of the military. He found a new side of himself," Kristopher Craig said of his kid brother, one of 13 people gunned down at Fort Hood in Texas. Another area soldier, Francheska Velez, was also killed.

Craig, who also served in the Army and spent a year at Ft. Hood, was expecting to see Pearson in a few weeks when he came home before shipping out to Afghanistan. Early this morning, he found himself standing outside the family's Bolingbrook home, eyes red, struggling with his grief.

"Nobody knows how to handle it," Craig said, barely able to talk. "It's hard to believe that he's gone. I just don't understand it."

Sheryll Pearson and her husband, Jeff, heard the news about the shooting while at Craig's home.

But they figured Pearson was safe. The reports said the victims were in an overseas deployment processing center. Michael, they knew, had received his anthrax shot two days before in preparation for deployment overseas in January.

"We thought it was going to be okay, because we thought it was another building," Pearson's mother said. "Mike won't be there because he already he got his inoculations ... He shouldn't be in that part of that building. Since we weren't contacted, we felt we were okay."

But as they were driving home about 6:30 p.m., they received a call on their cell phone from her son's sergeant at Ft. Hood. Pearson, he said, had been shot three times -- in the spine and chest. He said Pearson had lost a lot of blood.

About 10 p.m., an Army surgeon called to say that Pearson hadn't made it. He said doctors had brought Pfc. Pearson back to life twice on the operating table but were unsuccessful the third time.

"His father is still in shock and very angry," Sheryll Pearson said. "We're all very angry."

Pearson, 21, joined the Army slightly more than a year ago and was training to deactivate bombs, his mother said.

"He was working for a furniture company and felt like he wasn't going anywhere," she said this morning.

"He felt he was in a rut. He wanted to travel, see the world. He also wanted an opportunity to serve the country." She said he also wanted to further his education after graduating from Bolingbrook High School.

"He would do anything for us," she continued. When Jeff Pearson was laid off from his job, Mike sent home money to buy new tires for the family car.

She said she last talked to her son two days ago about him coming home for Christmas. She told him she had already gotten his room ready. She was particularly excited because she hadn't seen her son in a year. He had been training for a year in the Mojave Desert.

"He was always upbeat and looking forward to coming home," she said. "He was bringing his guitar home." Pearson, she said, loved music and his guitar. He and his father often played together.

Mike Dostalek, Pearson's cousin, said Jimmy Hendrix was his idol. Pearson also taught himself how to play piano, Dostalek added during an informal news conference outside the family home this afternoon.

"He was the poster child of what any mother wanted in a son," she said.

This afternoon, Sheryll Pearson said her son's death "still doesn't seem real to me."

He was the best son in the whole world. He was a good student, good friend, loyal, a hard worker -- he was my best friend and I miss him," she said, adding that she is praying for the families of the other victims.

Craig said he and his brother were recently discussing who he should see before he shipped out to Afghanistan. "We know Afghanistan is not a joke," he said.

"We were completely blindsided by this," Craig added. "It's simple military, really. . .All the guys around you, you trust them with your life. You're all there to watch each other's back. That's the way the military works. He trusted everybody that was around him."

"Attacking another soldier, it's just ridiculous, I don't understand it."

Craig said his brother was planning on going to college after the Army to study music theory.

"Music. I mean, really, that's what kept him going through any hard time our family had. Him and his stepfather played guitar. . .He was a genius as far as we were all concerned. My stepfather has been playing for years and years, and my brother surpassed him in a couple weeks of playing the guitar. He wasn't really expressive with his words. When he started playing the guitar, we all understood that was how he was communicating to everybody, that's where his emotion was.

"He didn't drink, didn't smoke, never wanted to. He was a perfect kid," Craig said. "He lived his life by his guitar and his work. He was an amazing kid. He was my mom's best friend."

Jessica Koerber, a family friend, was with the Pearsons when they received the phone call about Michael's death and said she was outraged.

If his killer didn't want to ship overseas, "he should have killed himself and not taken out other people," she said.

Koerber, 26, said she was surprised by Pearson's decision to enlist. "It shocked me because he'd be so far from his family. His family is his life," she said, adding that his nieces and nephews "loved their uncle Mikey."

"Michael was someone who never did anything wrong in his life," Koerber said. "So we all thought he's going to pull through, (that) God's not going to take him."

At Bolingbrook High School today, where Pearson graduated in 2006, the American flag hung at half staff and grief counselors were at the ready to help students.

Besides his parents and brother Kristopher, Pearson is survived by another brother, Jason Craig, and a sister, Julie Craig.

This afternoon at the informal news conference, Dostalek read a prose poem Pearson wrote:

I look only to the future for wisdom. To rock back and forth in my wooden chair. To grow out the beard of the Earth and play my experience through sound. Not always pleasant. But just as important. For each note must represent my love, pain and experience. Everyone has a place in my story. And someday I'll play a tune that represents you and the role you played in my life.