Rocky Mountain News -- A Fort Carson soldier known to his squadron as "Iron Will" and his family as "John Boy" died in Baghdad Sunday after his tank became submerged in a canal, the Department of Defense announced Tuesday.
The cause of the accident that killed Spc. Ronnie D. Williams, 26, of Morning View, Ky., while on patrol is still under investigation.
He was serving his second tour in Iraq, said his wife, Darlene.
"He knew there was nothing here in Kentucky," she said Tuesday night from her home. "After 9/11, he said he wanted to make a difference."
Ronnie and Darlene Williams were childhood sweethearts who grew up on the same street.
They married Dec. 18, 2004, although Ronnie Williams wanted to wait until his tour of duty was up in January 2006. He didn't want Darlene to be a military wife.
"I knew that was his job though," she said.
Williams, a member of the 3rd Squadron of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, was in the process of adopting Darlene Williams' 2-year-old son, Houston, and the couple was planning on buying a house. He was proud of how well his wife was managing on her own.
"The last time I talked to him he told me, 'You're doing a great job, honey,' " she said.
He was last home at the end of May to celebrate his birthday and take a belated honeymoon to Florida.
He returned to Iraq on June 12, but not before stopping by his niece Angela's school to hand out candy to her classmates, who had written to him in Iraq.
"He did everything he wanted to do while he was here," Darlene Williams said of her husband, who loved to four-wheel and often had a fishing pole by his side.
Williams said her husband was "always laughing, always smiling and always playing some sort of joke on somebody."
When she returned home from a family reunion to find a white van and two Army officials in her driveway, she said she had hoped he might be playing one of his pranks.
But the reality was something the couple had discussed before.
"He said, 'Darling, the only way I'll ever leave you is if I get caught in my tank,' " she said. "And that's what happened."
Funeral arrangements are pending, but a memorial will be at Fort Carson on Aug. 4 to remember the soldier Darlene Williams called a great man.
"We were living our dream," she said. "It was all taken away way too soon."
I would like to say thank you for your service and sacrifice for our Country. And to your family, I wish to extend my deepest sympathy.
"Brave Rifles!"(3rd ACR Motto)