Sgt. Nicole Gee, the Sacramento area Marine killed while helping the evacuation efforts in Afghanistan, was remembered Saturday in a memorial at Roseville’s Bayside Adventure campus as a stellar student and athlete who went on to become a brave “Marine’s Marine” who died doing what she loved.
Gee, who was 23, was among the 13 service members killed in the attack on the Kabul airport in August. Just days before her death, Gee posted a photo on Instagram of herself in uniform holding a baby in Kabul with the caption, “I love my job.” Gee served as a maintenance technician with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit.
The image of Sgt. Gee cradling an infant in her arms and declaring, “I love my job” was one such moment, he said.
Misty Fuoco, Gee’s older sister, read a poem from a fellow Marine that called Gee a “true Marine’s Marine,” a tribute that came up repeatedly during the service.
Gee attended school in Roseville and graduated from Oakmont High School in 2016. Speakers said she was on the school’s honor roll with a 4.1 GPA and that she loved to play softball, work out, do gymnastics, go camping, bake and go wakeboarding.
Gee’s father, Rick, spoke through a family friend named Patty. His eulogy remembered the day Gee was born and when she began going to school, saying she was always “self-driven and motivated to succeed.”
Fellow Marine, Sgt. Mallory Harrison, stood alongside Gee’s husband, Jarod Gee. Harrison paid tribute to Gee, saying the pair were best friends.
“I’ve heard Sgt. Nicole Gee described as many things since the cowardice act that took her life. The most common of which is beautiful,” she said. “Although she was undeniably beautiful she was so much more than just a pretty face. She was brilliant. She was bold and she was brave. She was my person — a Marine’s Marine.”
Harrison said the pair used to joke about “how crazy it was that we were so close.”
“Two thousand, four hundred and sixty-one lives given up so others may live freely, so little girls may attend school, speak freely and leave their homes, so we as Americans can feel safe as our head hits the pillow every night,” she said. “I can’t speak for the other 2,460 but I can speak for one when I say that Nicole died doing what she loved. She lost her life so others may live and without a doubt, she died proud. Proud of who she was, proud of what she was doing and proud to be a United States Marine.”
Bayside Pastor Ray Johnston said during the memorial that he’s never seen an outpouring quite like Gee’s.
“She lived a life of service, honor and sacrifice. That’s increasingly rare in our country,” Johnson said.
Johnston added that Gee packed several lifetimes into her 23 short years, and she “gave her life so that other people could live their lives.”
Before her assignment in Afghanistan, Gee was stationed with her husband, who she’s been married to for five years, in North Carolina.
After services ended, Gee’s flag-draped casket was brought outside the church for military funeral honors where Gee’s family and husband received a flag, followed by a procession.
The community was encouraged to show support by lining the sidewalks along the streets from the church leading to Highway 65 to Interstate 80.
Eleven Marines, one Navy sailor and one Army soldier were among the dead in the attack that killed Gee, while 18 other U.S. service members were wounded in the bombing, which was blamed on Afghanistan’s offshoot of the Islamic State group.
The U.S. said it was the most lethal day for American forces in Afghanistan since 2011.