Schofield soldier killed by bomb

A sergeant from Virginia is the 10th member of the Stryker brigade to die in Iraq

A 25-year-old Schofield Barracks soldier assigned to the 25th Infantry Division’s Stryker brigade combat team died Sunday from wounds he suffered when his foot patrol was struck by a homemade bomb near Baghdad.

Sgt. Kenneth B. Gibson of Christiansburg, Va., was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team. He died of wounds in Tarmiyah.

A childhood friend described Gibson as “fun to be around.”

Sabrina Scaggs of Riner, Va., who was his baby sitter, told the Washington Post that: “You had to love him.”

“He was an irresistible, gotta-love-him kind of guy,” she said.

“You had to love him, because he was just adorable,” she said. “Absolutely adorable.”

People liked to be with him, she said, and in addition, he was “a very smart young man.”

Gibson was the 10th Stryker brigade soldier to die in Iraq since the Schofield Barracks unit was sent there in December. The last Stryker soldier killed was Spc. William L. McMillan III, 22, of Lexington, Ky. He died July 6 in Baghdad of wounds suffered when his patrol was struck by an improvised explosive device.

Gibson joined the Army in March 6, 2002, and was assigned to Schofield Barracks in August of that year.

More than 4,000 soldiers with the Hawaii-based Stryker brigade are serving a 15-month deployment in the northern Baghdad area. The soldiers left Hawaii in November and December. The same unit — minus the 19-ton Stryker vehicles — spent all of 2004 and part of 2005 in Iraq.

Thirteen 25th Division soldiers from the 2nd Brigade were killed during the Iraq deployment in 2004-2005. Since the war started on March 19, 2003, 87 soldiers, four sailors, 83 Marines, two Air Force personnel and one civilian with Hawaii ties have been killed.