The body of Army Staff Sgt. Wesley “Wes” Williams, who was killed last week in Afghanistan, was flown Thursday to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base for the dignified transfer to a New Carlisle funeral home, where visitation will be held today.

His parents, lifelong Park Layne residents Lars and Linda Williams, remembered their son this week as a soldier who loved the call of battle and as a kid with too much energy to have done anything else in life.

They recalled the effect that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, had on their son — who, though only 14 at the time, was mad that his parents wouldn’t let him join the Army on the spot.

“He wanted me to get him a fake birth certificate,” Linda Williams said.

“He’d seen too many World War II movies about underage soldiers,” Lars Williams added.

But, as his mother explained, “I told him, ‘Be a boy for now. It will still be there.’”

Wes Williams, 25, and a 2005 Tecumseh High School graduate, died Dec. 10 in Kandahar of wounds inflicted by an improvised explosive device.

Friends, family and those merely appreciative of his service will gather for the visitation from 6 to 9 p.m. today at the Trostel, Chapman, Dunbar and Fraley Funeral Home, 507 W. Jefferson St.

The funeral service will be private. Burial will follow in Arlington National Cemetery.

“He went the way he wanted to go,” Lars Williams said.

Wes Williams leaves behind a wife and a 1-year-old daughter. His wife, fellow Tecumseh graduate Krista Williams, is due in July with their second child.

He also leaves behind a brother and two sisters.

A veteran of two tours in Iraq, Wes Williams deployed Nov. 15 to Afghanistan as a squad leader with the Army’s 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.

“Every time he left, he was smiling,” Lars Williams said. “He considered it an honor to go do it.”

Each time, he made it known he might not come home.

“He prepared his wife beautifully,” Lars Williams said.

Even so, the sight last week of a military chaplain in full dress in the Williams’ Park Layne home was completely unexpected.

Lars Williams, who services college laundromats, was away from the house when his wife called, telling him to come home immediately.

“The drive I had coming up was four, five minutes,” he said. “Everything went through my head, from my dog to my daughter to my mom.”

Not once did he think it might be about his son — until he saw the chaplain.

“It’s an out-of-body experience until reality sets in,” Lars Williams said. “When he says, ‘On behalf of a grateful nation,’ it sets in.”

Wes Williams was born to be a soldier. He was, after all, born on an Army base.

Lars Williams was stationed at Fort Hood in Texas at the time, wrapping up his three-year Army commitment and upholding the family legacy of military service.

“We’ve had a Williams in there since the Revolutionary War,” Lars Williams explained.

From the beginning, Wes Williams never wanted to do anything else.

“From the get-go,” Lars Williams said, “my wife called him her little soldier.”

“It’s either in your blood or not,” his mother added.

The family this past summer buried Lars Williams’ dad, an 87-year-old veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, in Arlington. Never did Lars Williams think he’d return to Arlington so soon.

He draws a parallel between his son’s generation and his father’s.

“They have volunteered knowing full well what they were getting into,” he said. “It’s heartwarming that we can still produce that in America.”