NEW ORLEANS (AP)  Two Louisiana soldiers killed in Afghanistan were among 18 fallen service members honored Thursday by President Barack Obama at the Delaware air force base where their bodies were returned home to the U.S.The bodies of Sgt. Patrick Williamson, 24, of Broussard, and Pfc. Brian Bates, 20, of Gretna in suburban New Orleans, were on the plane met early Thursday by the president at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.”Brian met the president. And that‘s all that matters. I know he would like that,” his wife, Enjolie Bates, said in a telephone interview from Lakewood, Wash. She said Bates loved his job and the Army.”He liked the idea of fighting for his country. He thought that‘s worth it. He believed in it,” she said.He planned to make the Army his career, said his grandmother, Marlene O‘Briant Tully of Gretna.Both Bates and Williamson were in the Army‘s 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry division and were killed Tuesday in Afghanistan, relatives said. Funeral arrangements were incomplete.Bates drove a Stryker light-armored vehicle, “which he told me was the safest job they had. They hit a bomb. That‘s all I know. All seven of them were killed,” Tully said.Williamson‘s father, Leon “Buddy” Williamson, said Thursday that his son recently was promoted to sergeant and was among soldiers in the brigade killed this week in Afghanistan‘s Kandahar province.Williamson said his son was the first member of his family to enlist.”At the end of the day, he was doing what he wanted,” Williamson said. “He‘s wanted to join the Army and be in the infantry since fifth grade.”- – – -Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at [email protected]