Army Staff Sgt. Jesse L. Williams of Santa Rosa was killed in Iraq by a single bullet fired by an enemy sniper, his father said Tuesday as plans for the soldier's return home and memorial service next week were announced.
Sniper fire was "the thing he feared the most over there because you never see them," Herb Williams said, recalling his son's chillingly prophetic comments while he was home on leave in December.
The Pentagon announced Tuesday the 25-year-old died Sunday in Balad of wounds from small-arms fire during combat operations in Baqubah, about 40 miles northeast of Baghdad.
Military officials, including the Coalition Press Information Center in Baghdad, were unable to give details on the operation that claimed Williams life.
His body arrived Tuesday at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and is scheduled to receive a military escort to San Francisco on Monday, followed by a memorial service April 19 in Santa Rosa.
Herb Williams, a veteran political consultant, said he was overwhelmed by a deluge of offers of help and condolences while planning his son's memorial.
"I owe this community a lot," Williams said. "They have surrounded me with support like I never would have believed."
Santa Rosa Mayor Bob Blanchard, a family friend and spokesman, said the public's "care and compassion" have been "mind-blowing."
As they fielded dozens of telephone calls Tuesday, Blanchard said he could see the joy on Herb Williams' face. "He is overwhelmed," Blanchard said.
He was joined Tuesday by other members of the Santa Rosa City Council and the local Veterans Day Committee who paid tribute to Williams at the City Council meeting, adjourned in honor of the fallen veteran.
Councilwoman Veronica Jacobi discussed a monument that eventually will be installed in Old Courthouse Square to honor Sonoma County veterans who have died in service to their country.
Plans are to have the names of those who have died in war etched into seven columns that will surround a young boy and girl holding a folded American flag.
The columns will be arranged in descending height around the two bronze figures to symbolize the hope that one day wars will end.
"I hope," said Jacobi as she teared up, "that Jesse's name is the last name to go on the monument."
Dan Drummond, a member of the veteran's committee and the Santa Rosa East Rotary Club said, "Jesse represented all that was good in America, the finest this country has to offer."
That sentiment also was expressed in Sacramento, where the state Assembly was adjourned Tuesday in Williams honor at the request of Assemblywoman Noreen Evans.
Herb Williams said he will not fly to Dover, as he had originally planned, because soldiers from his son's base at Fort Lewis, Wash., will accompany Jesse's body home to California.
Williams and his son's wife, Sonya Glidden Williams, will attend a memorial service Friday for Jesse Williams at Fort Lewis.
Williams, an Eagle Scout who joined the Army in 2001, was on his second tour in Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. He and Sonya had a baby girl, Amaya, born in May.
Williams, who spent just seven weeks with his daughter, was the sixth Sonoma County service member killed in Iraq.
Tributes to the soldier continued Tuesday, including an e-mail message from Iraq from a high school buddy who wound up in the 3rd Stryker Brigade and lived near Williams at Fort Lewis.
"I can't believe that happened," Spc. Jason Holmes, 25, said in the e-mail that his father, Dean Holmes, received Tuesday morning. "Jesse and I were more than close, he was like a brother to me. He was a great friend, one of the few I could really trust and was always there for me."
Jesse Williams and Jason Holmes attended Santa Rosa High School together, and Dean Holmes, a retired science teacher, knew Williams both as a student and a friend of his son.
"He was a great guy to talk to," Dean Holmes said. "He had a great heart."
Neither young man was a stellar student: Williams took a high school equivalency exam and Holmes earned a high school diploma at adult school because it was required to join the service, his father said.
Williams was a "challenging student," Dean Holmes said. "I liked Jesse. He was always respectful. He always called me 'sir.' "
Jill Milner, a former mother-in-law of Jesse Williams, said her family in Spanaway, Wash., was stunned by the soldier's death, which was reported on the front page of the Tacoma News Tribune.
"We felt, and still feel, like we've been sucker punched," Milner said in an e-mail. Her daughter, Danielle, who served in the Air Force, was married to Williams and the Milners still considered him their son.
"He loved life," Jill Milner said. "He was a joker with a 'whacked' sense of humor, which fit right into our family."
An Air Force retiree, Milner said she is "strongly opposed" to war. "The price is far too high, too much blood, too many valuable lives," she said.
Iraq war widow Sarah Kynoch, 25, of Santa Rosa expressed condolences for the Williams family. Her husband, Army Cpl. Joshua Kynoch, was killed on Oct. 1, 2005. Their daughter, Savannah, will be 2 on April 19.
"I remember like it was yesterday how I felt," Sarah Kynoch said. A Santa Rosa Junior College student, Kynoch said she is "learning how to handle it."
Staff Writer Mike McCoy contributed to this story. You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com.
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