BENTON – On the front page of Tuesday’s Bangor Daily News, a young soldier is bent over his weapon in Iraq, cleaning the sand from its mechanism.

The Kuwaiti desert is a long way from rural Benton, where that soldier – PV2 Roy Lawrence – played football, earned a place on his high school honor roll, listened to opera and was saving up to buy a car.

“He looked great in the picture,” said Lawrence’s father, Roy Lawrence Sr., on Tuesday. “We are so proud of him.”

The picture did contain one surprise for Lawrence’s family – a new tattoo on the 18-year-old soldier’s arm asks God to “preserve my life from fear of the enemy.”

“I knew he was getting it just before he left,” said the elder Lawrence. “But he was keeping what it said a surprise.”

That surprise was over Tuesday morning when Lawrence’s family picked up the newspaper and saw their hometown hero at war.

The elder Lawrence and Lawrence’s stepmother, Kristina Walker, said Tuesday that Lawrence is a terrific son, a good friend to all, and the apple of his little sister’s eye.

Lawrence grew up in Fairfield Center and later moved to Siding Street in Benton with three brothers and two sisters.

Six-year-old Julia Lawrence is especially close to her big brother, said Walker.

“She took his picture to school today for show and tell,” said Walker. “I watched her show it to the bus driver as she got on the school bus this morning. Last week, she got up at 4 a.m. to write him a letter.”

A few miles away in Smithfield, Lawrence’s 3-year-old niece, Keegan Haines, keeps asking her mother, “Why is Uncle Roy in the Army?”

“How do you answer a question like that?” said Lawrence’s sister, Amanda Haines.

Lawrence was a premature baby, weighing in at only 4 pounds. “We almost lost him at birth,” said his father.

But the pictures of Lawrence in the newspapers – there have been two so far, Tuesday’s front-page portrait and another two weeks ago that showed him sleeping on the ground next to a tank – display a robust, healthy man.

“He lost his mother in a car accident when he was just 10,” said the elder Lawrence. “He had to grow up fast. He truly left here a man.”

The elder Lawrence said that the Army recruiting officers came to his home before his son graduated from high school last June. “We sat down and talked it over,” he said. “Getting money to help with college had a lot to do with his enlisting.”

Stationed at Fort Benning, Ga., his son was getting a little impatient as the war unfolded. “He was getting bored and really wanted to help out over there,” his father said.

The photographs in the newspapers only identify the location as the desert and the elder Lawrence said he is not sure where his son is today. Lawrence is with Task Force 2-69 Armor, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division.

With his voice faltering, the elder Lawrence apologized for crying as he described his soldier son. “We got a letter today,” he said. “He talked about buying a car before he left and the letter gives the specifics of what he wants. He ends the letter with ‘I’ll be home soon.'”

The Lawrence family said that friends, many of them Roy Jr.’s former classmates, have made the war watch easier. “They come over and it helps,” said the elder Lawrence.

“We want everyone to know that we are thinking about and praying for all the soldiers there, not just Roy,” said Walker.