[ WAR IN IRAQ ]
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Brandy Williams, whose husband, Eugene, was killed Saturday in Iraq, held their daughter Mya, 3, yesterday.
Williams lives on April has always been a month of milestones for Army Sgt. Eugene Williams' family.
in his letters
His wife recalls the love he had
for her and their daughterBy Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.com"Our wedding anniversary is April 28," Brandy Williams said yesterday. "My mom and I share the same birth date, April 16th, and April 30th would have been Eugene's birthday."
But instead of preparing celebrations, Brandy is planning to bury her husband, who died Saturday in a suicide bomber attack that killed three other U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
In an interview with the Star-Bulletin, Brandy, who is expecting the birth of the couple's second child in June, said she has yet to tell 3-year-old Mya that her father is dead.
"She doesn't know, but I think she senses there is something different," said Brandy, who returned home to Oahu with Mya after her husband left for the Middle East.
During his last call home on March 15, Eugene asked to speak to Mya.
"He tried to call at least twice a week from Kuwait," Brandy said. "He always talked to her when he called. They were very close.
"She adores him. He would take her to the park. She loved to paint. ... They played video games together."
Eugene, 24, learned in early January that his second child would be a girl. That was a few days before his unit, Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, was sent from Fort Stewart, Ga., to Kuwait as part of the military buildup for the Iraq war.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Brandy Williams, widow of Army Sgt. Eugene Williams and pregnant with their second child, hugged daughter, Mya, yesterday.
"He really wanted a boy really badly," Brandy said. "But once he found out that it was girl and that she was very healthy, he was very happy."
In one of the last letters Eugene sent from Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait, where the 3rd Infantry Division was staged before going to the "desert," he asked his wife if she liked the name Monica Shyann Williams for the child.
"This is what I like," Williams wrote in a March 16 letter, "but it's your decision. Let me know."
She said they discussed the name during one of their frequent intercontinental phone calls.
"I really don't know where he came up with it," Brandy said, "but I think he named her after a singer. After all, music was one of his passions."
In their March 15 phone call, Brandy recalled: "He told me then it was going to be the last phone call for a while because he didn't know when he would get back to use the phone. He even called his family in New York that same night."
On Saturday, Williams and three other members of the 3rd Division were killed when a suicide bomber, posing as a taxi driver, pulled up close to a roadblock north of Najaf and waved to the troops for help. A fifth soldier was injured.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Mya with some of her stuffed animals.
Brandy said she wanted to share the last two letters she received from her husband because they speak of his love for her and their daughter.
On three-hole, lined paper, Williams wrote on March 8: "I got pictures of you and Mya from the day I left. Thinking about all of you guys is what keeps me safe out here. Knowing I have to get back to all of you. You will never know how much I love all of you. I know that it takes me being away to really tell you. But I know that no matter where I am, here or by your side, I have you all the same and even more every day."
"If we go into Iraq and do what we have to do, it will be about two months after that I'll be home," he wrote.
"I probably won't be able to talk to you or write you then, but happy birthday and anniversary, and tell Mom happy birthday, too. I love you."
Williams' body has been shipped to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, and Brandy is waiting for the Army to tell her when it will be released. The Williams family in Highland, N.Y., 70 miles south of Albany, plans to hold a memorial service in the town where Eugene grew up and excelled in high school sports, especially football and basketball.
New York Gov. George Pataki paid tribute to Williams yesterday, calling him "an American hero who served his nation selflessly and courageously. His tragic death is a great loss for the people of New York state. The thoughts and prayers of all New Yorkers are with the family and friends of Sgt. Williams during this difficult time."
After the New York service, Williams' body, escorted by a younger brother, Eric, who was stationed in Kuwait at the start of the Iraq war, will be brought to Honolulu for another service and burial in Mililani.
Since word of Williams' death, Lynne and Robert Dela Cruz, Brandy's parents, said their phone in Waipio Gentry has been constantly busy with people calling in their support.
"People stop by," said Lynne Dela Cruz, "so many friends and other members of our extended family. ... All they say is, 'If you need anything, just call us.' We just want to say thank you for all their expressions of sympathy and support."
Brandy said she is extremely appreciative of the support from her alma mater, Sacred Hearts Academy, where she graduated in 1995. Today at Mass, the 1,100 students at the Catholic school were to say a special prayer and pay a tribute to the Williams family. The school says that about a dozen classmates from Brandy Dela Cruz's 1995 graduating class plan to attend the service, which will have a patriotic theme.
Following the morning service, each of the 1,100 students was to be given a length of yellow ribbon as a token of remembrance to adorn the Kaimuki campus.
Brandy said her husband did not realize how much he missed Hawaii until he left it and the Army in December 2001.
The 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks was his first assignment after basic training. After volunteering for a six-month peacekeeping mission in the Sinai Peninsula in January 2001, he left the Army and took his family to Florida to try to get into the music business with his brother.
"But he missed being in the military," Brandy said.
Even for the brief time the couple lived in Florida, Eugene became a member of the Florida Army National Guard until he rejoined the active Army last June and was sent to the 3rd Division.
"It's so funny," Brandy recalled. "When we lived here, he kept telling me how much he missed New York, the food and the ability to get in a car and drive somewhere.
"But when we moved to Florida and then to Georgia, he kept telling me he wanted to put in orders to get back here." He said "the people here were different ... more family-oriented and more polite."
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