Army Spc. Abraham S. Wheeler III

Remember Our Heroes

Army Spc. Abraham S. Wheeler III, 22, of Columbia, S.C.

Spc. Wheeler was assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.; died Aug. 28, 2009 in Logar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device.

WLTX -- Columbia (WLTX) - A Midlands family is mourning the loss of a hero tonight. Twenty-two-year-old Abraham Wheeler died in the line of duty while serving in Afghanistan.

"He's a good boy. He was a good boy and I know that God knows what he's doing," says Wheeler's aunt, Catherine Thomas.

For Thomas and other family members, that idea has come to the ultimate test. Her nephew Abraham, known to them as Rod, was killed just two days ago. "I was sitting there and my brother called me and he told me he had bad news. When he told me, I was trying to hold myself together, but I couldn't, so I just fell apart," she says, "What was in my head was his being so young. His life is gone and he's just getting started."

The army was how Rod had planned to start his adulthood. "He had it together, what he he wanted to do. He wanted to go to school, but he said he was going in the service and then when he came out, he would be able to go, knowing that he father couldn't send him," says Thomas.

His father, along with his mother and younger brother Travis, are leaning on extended family like Thomas. "We're a loving family. We love each other very much," she says.

Of course, their memories help too, especially those from just a few weeks ago when he was home on leave. Thomas says of her nephew, "Everybody loves him. He laughs all the time, the biggest pretty smile."

"We was expecting him back in October and so we were all looking forward to that and we was praying that he would be able to make it back," says Thomas.

It's that activity that's been continuous through it all. "We can question Him, but He's in control, so we're just praying that we can hold it together," she says.

Army Spc. Abraham S. Wheeler III was killed in action on 8/28/09.