Williams, whose wife, Brandy Dela Cruz Williams and 3-year-old daughter, Mya, live in Waipahu, died Saturday 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. He was one of four U.S. soldiers who died; another was injured.

"My mom took it pretty hard," Ackert said today by telephone from her parents' home in Highland, N.Y. "My dad took it pretty hard. We just buried my uncle on Saturday and Sunday morning we got the phone call from Brandy."

Then an Army sergeant came to their home to tell them personally.

"My mom went a little crazy," Ackert said. "She lost her voice, but now she is OK. Me, I'm trying to stay strong for everyone."

Ackert's brother was 24, the third oldest of four children. Another brother, 19-year-old Eric, is also in the Army, fighting somewhere in Iraq.

"But he is supposed to be coming home," Ackert said. "That's what they told us."

Williams belonged to the 3rd Infantry Division out of Fort Stewart, Ga. He left in December and waited during the long weeks for the war to start, his sister said today.

He had joined the Army in June 1998 but was out of the service for five months before re-enlisting last year, Ackert said.

"He really wanted to be a soldier," Ackert said. "He went over to do his job because that was what he signed up for. Everybody would have fears and doubts. Once he got over there, he wanted to come home."

Williams had told his wife that he would be back in the United States in June or July. His wife is pregnant and he was anxious to see the baby, Ackert said.

"In the last letter I received he said he wanted everybody to write to him because he said he would be unable to write to us once they went to war."

The family plans to have a funeral in Hawai'i.

Williams' wife was at an Army briefing at Schofield Barracks this morning and unavailable for comment.

But she told a national TV audience on NBC's Today show this morning that she would tell her children that their father gave his life for his country, "and that even though he's not here, he loves them with all his heart and that he's always going to be our hero."

Brandy Williams was notified of her husband's death late Saturday at their home in Waipahu. She last spoke to him March 15.

"He told me that he wasn't going to be able to call for a while," Williams told "Today." She said he had written some letters for her and their daughter, "but we haven't received them yet."