West Frankfort Soldier Killed in Combat (Matthew Vosbien)

WEST FRANKFORT, IL --The dream of a young West Frankfort boy came true when Matthew Vosbein enlisted in the U.S. Army. It's a dream his mother, Anna Williams says her son held onto since he was 5-years old.

"I remember buying him an Air Force uniform and he wore it all the time. I could barely get him out of it to clean it. Then when he was 5, I bought him some camouflage pants and a shirt," says Williams.

Sergeant Matthew Vosbien, of the101st Airborne Division 502nd Infantry Regiment, was living out his dream fighting in Iraq on his second tour of duty, when a roadside bomb took his life.

"He didn't have to go, but when his unit was called back up for a second time, he didn't want to leave his troops over there without him. And he really liked helping the kids over there. He was building them swing sets, and playing all sorts of games with them when he wasn't on patrol. He loved those Iraqi kids, almost as much as he did his own two sons," Anna said.

Just three weeks shy of his return to the United States, he's still coming home. But not the way his family had planned.

"He's got two boys who worship him. When I was down in Louisiana a couple of weeks ago, his youngest kept saying to me that his daddy wasn't coming home. I had to keep reassuring him that he was. Now we've had to go through and explain everything, and tell them that their daddy isn't coming home. And all they were worried about is that their daddy had promised to do things with them when he returned. And now daddy wasn't going to be able to do that. And they wanted to know who was going to do those things with them now," Anna said wiping tears from her eyes.

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