Gary Joe Sibley U. S. Army 1989-1997

Biography of Gary Sibley by Braxton Allen, Wyatt Sibley, and Kade Pearson

“It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle, but it takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.” This quote came from Gary Joe Sibley, who served in the United States Army.

Gary was born in Mitchell County, Beloit, Kansas, on August 20th, 1958. Gary was a good student and after he graduated from Beloit High School, he went to help his dad with the family carpet laying business.

Enlisting at the age of thirty, Gary decided he wanted to serve his country like his brothers and his dad and also make more money. Basic training was at Fort Jackson, and Gary completed his advanced eight-week training at Fort Gordon in Georgia. Training and conditioning rules were basic. Gary completed basic household chores like cleaning the barracks and doing laundry. Gary was issued shirts, shorts, sweatpants, and jackets for warm-up uniforms. He did not mind the training but did not enjoy all the extra exercises he had to do because of other people messing around.

When Gary went to Fort Gordon for advanced training for telephone communications, he ran lines for telephones. His family often wrote to him, and on one occasion a lady wrote to him about her daughter who was in the Air Force when he was in Saudi Arabia.

Gary served in Operation Desert Storm, and he told us about some of the conditions. The food in Saudi Arabia was very bland. The weather was hot and dry. The basic rule that they had was to follow instructions. They also had to go to sleep at 9:00 P.M. and would have to wake up at 4:30 A.M. every day.

At the beginning of Gary’s deployment, he was supposed to go to Germany but had to go back to Fort Georgia and fly on another airplane. He later went to Saudi Arabia and was stationed at a base outside of Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. He was a part of the 67th Signal Battalion, 11th Signal Brigade. In his free time, while he was in Saudi Arabia, he enjoyed going out.

After his military service, Gary came home to his wife, daughter Gara, and newborn son Jared. They moved to Red Cloud, Nebraska, where he worked at Great Plains Communications. He eventually moved back to Beloit to be closer to his family.

Gary said today he enjoys hunting, fishing, watching TV, “liking Trump and hating Joe Biden; liking girls, and drinking BEER like a man.”

We want to thank Gary Joe Sibley for his service to our country and for the sacrifices he made while he served in the military for eight years.