Freedom Remembered

Born: July 24, 1981 in Voorhees Township, New Jersey
Died: January 26, 2005 in Korean Village, Iraq

Cpl. Timothy Gibson of Hillsborough, New Hampshire was a 2000 graduate of Merrimack High School, where he played football and baseball. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in April 2001 and had been expected to leave Iraq on Feb. 12, and was to be discharged in April. He said that he thought he was doing good and that he was helping people, but it was different than anything he could have expected. He had talked about moving to upstate New York and training to become a state trooper after leaving the service. A younger brother, also a Marine, served in Iraq. Both of Gibson’s grandfathers and an uncle were in the military. Spirit Week is best described as a week of different-themed days, such as Decades Day and Beach Day. Students were encouraged to bring in old or new DVD, which would be sent to soldiers being treated at the military hospital in Kuwait. The idea for the drive was brought to MHS by Merrimack resident Mike Pittenger. The Pittengers were family friends of Timothy’s. Pittenger thought collecting DVDs would be a good way to honor the memory of Gibson while also providing something for injured soldiers who, while recovering, have a lot of down time. More than 225 DVDs were donated, with the most coming from the senior class. Each DVD was also fitted with a label that says “Donated by Merrimack New Hampshire High School students in honor of U.S. Marine Corporal Timothy Gibson.” He died when the CH-53E helicopter he was in crashed near Ar Rutbah, Iraq at age 23.

Marines
1st Battalion
3rd Marine Regiment
3rd Marine Division
III Marine Expeditionary Force
Marine Corps Base Hawaii

Burial is at Last Rest Cemetery, in Merrimack, New Hampshire

The Cpl Timothy Mark Gibson by Freedom Remembered, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.