By Ian Shapira
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 24, 2008

A 34-year-old airman from Norfolk was killed Saturday after his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, according to a statement yesterday by the Defense Department.

Tech. Sgt. William Jefferson Jr., a member of the 21st Special Tactics Squadron at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina, died from wounds he suffered after his vehicle was struck by the makeshift bomb in the Sperwan Ghar region.

Messages were left with Air Force Special Operations Command officials and Jefferson's father, William Haywood Jefferson, but the calls were not immediately returned. The airman's grandmother spoke fondly yesterday of her grandson. "He was a very good boy, and he loved his job in the Air Force," Nora Jefferson said in a telephone interview from her Norfolk home. "He was a very good boy. He would do anything for you."

Jefferson was married and had an 8-year-old daughter, his grandmother said. He was close to his sister and parents, she said.

"His mom and dad are not holding up too well," she said. "His sister, she has her times."

In recent months, the area where Jefferson was killed has been the site of battles between NATO troops and Taliban insurgents as well as reconstruction efforts for displaced villagers, according to news reports.