ALBANY, GA - Relatives identified the third Georgia guardsman killed in Iraq this week, possibly by a suicide bomber, as 21-year-old Spc. Mathew Gibbs of Ambrose.
Gibbs and two others, all believed to be combat engineers, were killed Wednesday by what military officials describe as a ``vehicle-borne bomb.'' Ronnie Carver, Gibbs' father-in-law, said the guardsman phoned Tuesday to say that he had been reassigned from operating an armored vehicle known as a ``buffalo,'' that checked roadsides for bombs, to checkpoint duty.
``From our understanding he was on a detail where they were checking cars at a checkpoint,'' Carver said Friday. ``This car that drove up was a suicide bomber. That's our understanding of what happened.''
The latest deaths brought the losses of the guard's 48th Brigade to 11 since July 24, and marked the third time in 10 days it had suffered multiple fatalities from attacks. They were the Georgia Guard's first combat-related casualties since World War II. The 48th Brigade includes about 150 soldiers from a Gainesville-based unit.
Carver said Gibbs joined the Georgia Army National Guard about three years ago to improve himself and qualify for educational benefits.
``I tell folks he was just my other son,'' Carver said. ``It was very hard to think of him as a son-in-law. He was that kind of guy.''
Gibbs, who worked at a mobile home factory in Alma, was a member of the 648th Engineer Battalion in Douglas, Carver said. He was survived by his wife, Rae, and two daughters, Ariana, 5, and Arissa, 3.
Family members identified the others killed Wednesday as Sgt. Jerry Lewis Ganey, 29, of Folkston and Staff Sgt. Charles Houghton Warren, 36, of Duluth.
With his dark complexion, black hair and piercing green eyes, Ganey was ``too good-looking to be a boy,'' his aunt, Phyllis Haddock of nearby Hilliard, Fla., said Friday.
There was no mistaking Ganey for anything but a tough guy. He'd played football for the Hilliard High School Flashes and enlisted in the Marine Corps after graduation. He loved guns, fighting and women.
``He'd fight at the drop of a hat,'' Haddock said. ``He was the type of guy, if he saw a gentleman or young man disrespect a lady, he would put that young man in their place.''
Standing about 6-feet, 2-inches tall and tipping the scales at 240 pounds, Ganey had a healthy appetite and a habit of charming his way to the Sunday dinner tables of family and friends.
``He'd call Sunday `Fat Day,''' Haddock said. ``He'd go around to all the people who cooked and then he'd eat. He would go to two or three houses sometimes. Wherever Lewie went, he was welcome.''
Ganey married his wife, Debra, in December just before the 48th Brigade mobilized to Fort Stewart to train for its May deployment. He was also the father of a daughter, 6-year-old Vanessa.
Warren had moved to the Atlanta area about five years ago and was a hospital nurse, according to his brother, Alex Warren of Alexandria, Va.
The dead soldier and his wife, Carol, have a 1.5-year-old son and a 1-month-old daughter he had never seen, Alex Warren said.
He said his brother, a combat engineer, was supposed to get out of the guard a year ago but was kept in. ``He was drafted, in my eyes,'' Warren said. ``I don't see what we're doing there. It doesn't make any sense.''
Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who was speaking in several south Georgia towns on Friday, called the recent deaths tragic.
``We're reminded that war is very ugly business,'' said Chambliss, who will leave in about a week to visit soldiers in Iraq. ``These sons and daughters are true American heroes.''
Gov. Sonny Perdue has called for a statewide moment of silence on Aug. 18 coupled with a prayer vigil at the state Capitol to honor the Georgians killed in Iraq.
Eight of the unit's dead were members of the brigade's Company A, 2nd Battalion, 121st Infantry from Valdosta. Four died when a bomb exploded under their Humvee on July 24 and four others died in a similar incident six days later.
The 48th Brigade is the largest combat unit of the Georgia National Guard to deploy since World War II. The brigade, which arrived in Iraq in May, has 2,700 members from across Georgia, and is augmented by about 1,600 others from Alabama, Illinois, Missouri, Maryland, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico.
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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June 5th, 2025
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