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Monday, December 20, 2004
Local soldier's valor recalled
By MARK I. JOHNSON | News-Journal Staff Writer
NEW SMYRNA BEACH — “When a person loses a spouse, they are a widow. When a child loses their parents, they are an orphan. But there is no word for a parent that loses a child.”
Gary Conroy didn’t know U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Arthur C. Williams IV, but with those words he summed up the grief and pain experienced by those gathered Sunday afternoon to remember the fallen soldier.
“The loss of a child is such a horrible thing. No one has come up with a word for it,” said Conroy, who described himself as a family friend.
He was among about 150 friends, family members and residents who attended the memorial service for the former Edgewater resident at First Baptist Church of New Smyrna Beach.
Williams died Dec. 8 when his foot patrol — part of Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment — was hit by small-arms fire in Ramadi, Iraq.
He and two members of his team were participating in an operation against a suspected improvised bomb-making site in the insurgent stronghold about 70 miles west of Baghdad.
Williams is the second resident from Volusia County to die in Iraq since the war began. Daytona Beach resident Michael Charles Anderson, a Navy Seabee, was killed in Ramadi on May 2.
A floral-flanked portrait of the 31-year-old soldier standing next to an American flag was erected over a table filled with his citations — including the Bronze Star — as family members talked of the pride and commitment he had for his chosen profession.
“I knew he was ready to die, and there was always that chance,” said his father, Arthur C. “Art” Williams III. “I am very proud of him.”
The senior Williams told the gathering when he learned of his son’s death he felt a touch of guilt. As an only son, he knew he could have kept his boy out of combat.
“But I knew that is what he wanted,” he said. “He was a solider.”
Williams’ grandmother, Erma Smith of Tennessee, said she cried when her grandson told her he was joining the service in 1991 after graduating from New Smyrna Beach High School.
“I asked him if he was sure that is what he wanted to do,” she said. “He said his country needed him.”
The soldier’s mother, Anne Marie Thurber of Mountain Home, Idaho, spoke of memories she will keep in her heart, such as the time as a toddler Williams went fishing with the family and ended up playing in the ashes of a bonfire.
“He was covered in black,” she said. “The only white you could see was his eyes.”
It is those remembrances she will hold on to as time passes, Thurber said.
Pastor Mel Rodriguez of New Smyrna Beach’s Lighthouse Worship Center spoke of the sacrifice Williams made for all Americans.
“Freedom is expensive,” Rodriguez said. “We enjoy freedom because someone paid the price. Arthur Williams helped pay the cost of that freedom.”
Arthur C. Williams III, wiping the tears from his eyes, said memorializing his only son was the hardest thing he has ever had to do. But, while the body is gone, he knows his child’s spirit lives on, dancing with God.
“And, one day, we will be dancing together,” he said.
In addition to his father and mother, Williams is survived by his wife, Sheree Williams, Fayetteville, N.C.; and two sisters, Michelle Bohn and Debbie Rogers, both of Reading, Pa.