Nicholas Gibbs remembered

After the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Nicholas Ray Gibbs really needed to do something for his country. His stepfather suggested he give blood.

Two days after her only son, an Army infantryman, was killed in Iraq, his mother reflected on that suggestion.

"We didn’t mean this way," Debbie Halstead said.

Halstead remembers her son as her best friend, the one who would always wait to say goodbye to her last when he left because he knew she would take it the hardest.

Her last conversation with her son — an instant-message exchange via computer two weeks ago — was cut short because he had to leave for patrol.

"I didn’t even get to say goodbye that time," said Halstead, who lives in Raleigh.

Gibbs, a specialist in the 1st Armored Division, based in Giessen, Germany, was on patrol Wednesday night in Ramadi, Iraq, when he was shot in the face, Halstead said.

Gibbs, 25, had a lot of friends he didn’t get to tell goodbye — but they are saying goodbye to him now.

On Friday night, Daniel Baker and Rebecca Bennett, friends from Oak Ridge, where Gibbs grew up, got tattoos in honor of their friend.
Baker remembers meeting Gibbs at age 7 when they lived on the same dirt road.

"I went down the dirt road, and we started throwing rocks at each other," Baker said. "That’s how we met, and best friends ever since."

On Friday, Baker got a replica of one of Gibbs’ tattoos, a cross with angel wings, on the back of his shoulder. Baker put "Nick" in the center. For Baker, it was easier not to talk about losing his friend. The loss hurt, and the pain of the tattoo — his first — was the right thing to feel.

"He would take the pain for me; I’ll take the pain for him," Baker said. "I know he ain’t hurting, but I know his mom and dad ..." He broke off. "He shouldn’t even have been over there."

Gibbs was supposed to be home in October, his mother and friends said.

"He was all for the Army, but he was all for coming home, too," Bennett said. For her tattoo, she picked a shamrock similar to one that Gibbs had.

Waiting her turn at Monster’s Ink in High Point, Bennett talked about how gung-ho Gibbs was when he enlisted. When he filled out his Army paperwork, he was asked to indicate a first and second choice for his duty station. "He put Iraq and Iraq," Bennett said.

Friends and family said Gibbs was looking forward to a lot. An avid Ohio State football fan, he was ready for a national championship win for his team in January. He was planning to drive his dad’s Corvette, go to a welcome-home bonfire in March when his enlistment ended, and just have a steak and a beer at his favorite restaurant, Logan’s.

The family is waiting for Gibbs’ body to be returned before finalizing the funeral arrangements.

"The pain is just indescribable," his mother said.

She wears Gibbs’ infantry ring on a chain around her neck. When he gave it to her as he was leaving for Germany in 2004, she said she would wear it over her heart until her son was back on American soil.

Her son will be back soon, but now Halstead doesn’t want to take the ring off.

"I wanted him to come back," she said, "just like he promised us he would."

From the News Record

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Nicholas R. Gibbs slain by sniper