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Former coach remembers Navy sailor from Lisle as 'ultimate teammate'

Ryan Burris wasn't afraid of his job.

He had confidence in his faith and in his training before his first deployment, to the Middle East, where he would support an airstrike mission targeting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

"He was ready to go," his mom, Karen Burris, said. "He knew there was a job to be done."

Burris, a U.S. Navy petty officer third class from Lisle, died Thursday in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, from injuries in a noncombat incident in Zayed Military City, the U.S. Department of Defense announced Friday.

The military released no further details about Burris' death, but said the incident remains under investigation.

"They are searching for answers too," Karen Burris said Saturday.

She said Navy personnel are "taking very good care of us emotionally," and are helping arrange his funeral.

"You don't expect to do this for your 24-year-old child," she said.

Burris graduated in 2009 from Lisle Senior High School, where he was an offensive and defensive lineman, wrestler and thrower on the track team.

He was a "big kid," wrestling in the 215-pound weight class, said Lions coach John Davis.

Burris really wasn't a natural, but he had the discipline. He was "kind of an ultimate teammate," a wrestler Davis could count on to show up to practice and the weight room. By his senior year, Davis named him and four others varsity captains.

"He gave it everything that he had," Davis said.

Burris tried college, but "his heart was in the military," his mom said. And Davis remembers a teenage Burris volunteering at Cantigny Park in Wheaton, home to a museum on the Army's 1st Infantry Division.

Both his grandfathers served in World War II, one in the Army, the other in the Navy. His father, Dan, is a veteran, and he confided in his cousin, who did tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, his mom said.

"We are proud of our country, and we raised our children to be proud too," she said.

Burris enlisted about three years ago and underwent training at the Great Lakes Naval Station near North Chicago.

"He was very happy with what he was doing, and I'm very proud of him," his mom said.

  Dan and Karen Burris, of Lisle, whose son Ryan, a Navy petty officer died overseas Thursday, receive a Blue Start Service Banner in 2013 at VFW Post 3873 in Naperville from Glenn Granat of American Legion Post 43. Mark Black/mblack@dailyherald.com, November 2013
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