An NIU student is getting ready to go home to his family, if only to say goodbye.

Accountancy major Al Handley was called to active duty this past Sunday. Handley, a junior at NIU, is a Navy Petty Officer at Glenview Naval Air Station, Glenview, Ill.

“I guess it hit me in a different way because I knew it was coming. I am ready to go,” Handley said.

andley will be mobilized on Feb. 28, when he will be put on active duty in preparation to leave overseas.

He said the hardest thing to deal with is leaving school in the middle of his junior year.

“It’s a real setback, especially since I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. But I do know that I’ll finish up when I get back,” he said.

Handley will be stationed in Glenview for five days before he is sent to a base in El Toro, Calif., he said.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be there before leaving (for the Gulf). They didn’t tell us that,” he said.

Handley’s job is personal security for a chaplain. In a combat situation, chaplains are not allowed to fire arms, so it is Handley’s job to protect him.

“That’s if and when we go into combat,” he said. “I won’t know the situation until it happens.”

Handley said he fully supports President Bush.

“I have no problems with what we are doing over there. It is what needs to be done and I’d rather see it done now,” he said.

“I really can’t stomach protests. It doesn’t help anybody’s morale, and I don’t see it affecting any politician’s views,” he said.

“In fact, it lowers our morale and increases the morale of the Iraqi people and troops,” he said.