Nicole Gee.Photo: Nicole L. Gee/Instagram
Nicole Gee was a “hero” to many.
The 23-year-old Marine was killedin the attack outside the Afghanistan capital airporton Thursday that left 13 U.S. service members and scores more civilians dead.
Her father, Richard Herrera, touched on her legacy in aninterviewonTodayon Monday. “She’s my hero. She’s a warrior,” he said.
Her father said onTodayhe first saw the photo on television and proudly shared it with other friends and family.
Less than a week later, Gee had died in the attack against Americans and Afghans at Hamid Karzai International Airport.
“It broke me for a while, and it’s like a wave now,” her father said. “The emotions are up and down. It’s hit me hard.”
In a White House speech Thursday after the attack, PresidentJoe Bidenpraised the service members who were safeguarding ongoing evacuation operations in Kabul amid the U.S. withdrawal.
The president called them “heroes who have been engaged in a dangerous, selfless mission to save the lives of others.”
Her friend and roommate, Sgt. Mallory Harrison, posted a tribute on Aug. 27.
“My very best friend, my person, my sister forever. My other half. We were boots together, Corporals together, & then Sergeants together,” shewroteon Facebook. “Roommates for over 3 years now, from the barracks at MOS school to our house here. We’ve been attached at the hip from the beginning.”
Harrison continued, “I can’t quite describe the feeling I get when I force myself to come back to reality & think about how I’m never going to see her again. How her last breath was taken doing what she loved—helping people—at HKIA in Afghanistan. Then there was an explosion. And just like that, she’s gone.”
“My best friend. 23 years old. Gone. I find peace knowing that she left this world doing what she loved,” Gee’s dear friend concluded. “She was a Marine’s Marine. She cared about people. She loved fiercely. She was a light in this dark world. She was my person.”
Lt. Col. Patrick Williams, the commanding officer of Gee’s battalion, said in his own statement that she was “a shining example of what a Sergeant of Marines should be — mature, enthusiastic, and courageous. Her passing weighs heavy on our entire battalion.”
Gee waspromoted to Sergeantearlier this month, an Instagram post shows.
On Monday, after some $2 trillion, 2,400 American service members and 47,000 civilianskilled; after 19 years and 328 days — almost olderthan the youngestof the last troops who died in the last days of fighting — the U.S. withdrew from the Afghan capital of Kabul, ending the country’s longest-ever military operation.
source: people.com
