Marine Lance Cpl. Nicholas B. Morrison

Died August 13, 2004 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

---

23, of Carlisle, Pa.; assigned to 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.; killed Aug. 13 b y enemy action in Anbar province, Iraq.

---

Pennsylvania Marine killed in Iraq

Associated Press

CARLISLE, Pa. — A North Carolina-based Marine killed in Iraq complained about the food and the heat, but nothing else, his mother said.

Lance Cpl. Nicholas B. Morrison, 23, of Carlisle, Pa., died Friday during hostile action in Iraq’s Anbar province.

He joined the Marine Corps 16 months ago and planned to eventually become a state trooper, said his mother, Peggy Morrison, of West Pennsboro Township in Cumberland County.

“He cared about what he was doing,” Peggy Morrison said. “He believed in the war. He was afraid, but not afraid to do what was right.”

Morrison died when an explosive hit the Humvee in which he was riding, his mother said.

“They were on a scouting mission or something,” said Morrison, adding that she expected more detailed information from military officials Monday.

Morrison was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

“We sent him a digital camera and he’d take pictures during a gunfight,” Peggy Morrison said. “We’d holler and he’d say, ‘It’s not that bad.’ I think he tried to downplay it.”

Morrison was a 2000 graduate of Big Spring High School, where he was a linebacker on the football team and had many close friends, said schoolmate Matt Swanger, 22.

“He was the glue. When he would come home we would all make an effort to go out,” Swanger said. “He would still make us laugh about stories from when we were growing up. I was really looking forward to when he came home.”