Caring is in Jarrad Berry’s DNA. 

His father, the late Martin Leroy Berry, was a veterinarian in practice in Picayune. His grandfather, Donald Ray Berry, was a medical doctor in Picayune. Jarrad Berry continues the family’s health-care tradition as an optometrist at Advanced Eyecare in Picayune and Pearl River, La.

“Since I was 14 I wanted to be a pediatric surgeon,” said Berry, who turned 30 in January.  He took pre-med courses at Delta State University, but as graduation neared in 2008, the training demands for that career gave him pause.

“That’s 14 years of medical school, internship, residency,” Berry said.

Optometry had an appeal. Berry said he’d shadowed Kraig Stasney, Advanced Eyecare’s senior optometrist.

Berry attended Pennsylvania College of Optometry at Salus University, in Elkins Park, Pa.  On graduation, he joined the Army as a captain and eventually was stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., home of the Army’s XVIII Airborne Corps and the Army Special Operations Command.

While at Fort Bragg, the new eye doctor went from student to teacher, serving as a clinic chief, and a clinical preceptor of optometry and physician’s assistant students, family medicine residents, and even Special Forces medics.

“I have a lot of appreciation for those soldiers,” Berry said. “The most interesting people there were the Special Forces or CAG,” the acronym for Combat Applications Group, more commonly called “Delta Force.”

As his military service wound down, Berry said, “Kraig offered me a job.”

The move home also allowed him and his wife, Kelly, to let their daughters Madilyn, 7, and Aaliyah, 4, spend more time with their grandparents, Mary Ann Berry of Picayune and Billy and Diana Cantrell of Carriere.

He works Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the Picayune office at 718 S. Highway 11 and Tuesday and Thursday at the Pearl River, La., office at 64185 Highway 41.

Barry noted new Louisiana laws have expanded the kinds of care optometrists are allowed to offer, including new treatments for glaucoma, and said technology and pharmacology are “getting better all the time” for the treatment of eye disorders and diseases.

Berry will formally switch from active duty to reserve status at the end of September. He will be attached to the 7232nd Army Medical Support Unit in New Orleans for two years.

“I enjoyed the heck out of it,” he said of his time in the armed services.

And those years in uniform left their mark on more than his resume.

“I don’t know now how to dress myself,” he said, chuckling.