JG
John
Gibney
Gibney
LTC · HQ ·
Known as "Jack"
In-Country Service
–
Home of Record
Clearwater, Florida
Character of Service
Honorable
Archive Status
Active
Service timeline not yet compiled. If you served with or knew LTC John "Jack" Gibney, please use the contribute form to share what you remember.
1968-03-16
Command
Assumed command of 2/8 Cavalry — March 16, 1968
LTC Gibney assumed command of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry on March 16, 1968, the day after his predecessor, LTC Howard Petty, was killed by a mortar at LZ Betty, Quang Tri Province. The battalion was operating in Quang Tri Province during the Tet Offensive period.
1968-12-25
POW Negotiation
Operation CHICAGO FIRE, first meeting — December 25, 1968
LTC Gibney led a five-man team, selected by Gen. Walter T. Kerwin (CG, III Corps), to a dry paddy about 50 miles northwest of Saigon (near the Cambodian border, in Tay Ninh Province), under a local cease-fire, after the NLF announced over Liberation Radio (18 Dec.) that it wished to release three American POWs. Gibney's team flew in by helicopter and landed on spotting a large NLF banner. Talks lasted more than two hours and ended in a procedural stalemate: per the New York Times (31 Dec. 1968), Gibney refused the NLF leader's protocol overtures — a seat, a drink of tea, a handshake — declining to grant any implied diplomatic recognition to the Front. Gibney himself proposed a second meeting when the talks appeared to be failing.
1969-01-01
POW Release
Operation CHICAGO FIRE, second meeting — POWs released, January 1, 1969
One week after the first meeting stalled, the NLF accepted Gibney's proposal for a second meeting, held at the same dry paddy. Gibney led the same five-man delegation (with Lt. Joseph V. Tourtelot, a Signal Corps photographer, replacing Capt. Ronald R. Tesch) and, with deputy/senior interpreter Maj. Jean A. Sauvageot, negotiated the release of three U.S. POWs from Viet Cong custody: Specialist 4 Thomas N. Jones (Lynnville, IN), Specialist 4 James W. Brigham (Ocala, FL), and Pfc. Donald G. Smith (Akron, PA) — all 21 years old, held more than a year. Per a UPI wire account (the Baltimore Afro-American, 4 Jan. 1969), the release occurred at 10:42 a.m.; a Viet Cong officer read the men's names as five Communist and five American representatives formally exchanged custody under an NLF banner, and Gibney himself called "Dustoff" — the signal for the pickup helicopter to land — once the exchange was complete. That UPI story gives Gibney's age as 38 and his hometown as Oakdale, N.Y., conflicting with the Clearwater, Fla. hometown in the NYT and Washington Star accounts — an unresolved discrepancy, not adjudicated here. About 24 hours earlier, Maj. James N. Rowe, a Special Forces officer held by the Vietcong for more than five years, had separately been recovered by government troops in the Mekong Delta — a simultaneous but unrelated event. See the New York Times (1 Jan. 1969), the Washington Star (2 Jan. 1969, preserved as a declassified CIA document), and the Baltimore Afro-American (4 Jan. 1969) for contemporary accounts.
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