A decorated Navy veteran and Dover High School graduate will be the keynote speaker at the state Gulf War Memorial dedication on Legislative Mall in Dover Saturday.
Captain Robin R. Gibbs has 22 years of Navy service. She was deployed to Afghanistan in 2013, where she served with a 20 member combat medical support team.
Gibbs says the long running timeline of the Gulf region’s two wars means servicemembers and their families have sacrificed a lot.
“Places that we go to are not always safe. So in order to be able to do that, it does create a different kind of commitment that not everyone is willing to give,” she says. “This particular memorial is necessary in order to recognize what this generation has given to peace and tranquility in the world.”
Gibbs currently practices in Virginia as a certified registered nurse anesthetist and is a Nurse Corps officer in the United States Navy Reserve.
“There’s a lot of turmoil throughout the world and the armed services are stretched very thin across the world providing security and surveillance of areas that are very unstable,” she says. “But as servicemembers we still go and do what we have to do.”
The state Gulf War Memorial dedication is at Noon Saturday and will follow a Veterans Parade through downtown Dover.
