Leroy Jethro Gibbs was born in 1958 in the rural town of Stillwater, Pennsylvania. His father, Jackson Gibbs, named him after his business partner and friend, Leroy Jethro. At the age of eighteen, Gibbs joined the Marine Corps during the Bicentennial, during which he also first met his first wife, Shannon.
Gibbs attended the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot (MCRD) Parris Island, in South Carolina. His first assignment was Infantry at Camp LeJeune. At some point during that tour, he was selected or applied for sniper training, which he completed. His weapon was the Marine M-40A1 Sniper Rifle with hand-loaded Lapua 308 boat tail, full metal jacket, and molybdenum (or "moly")-coated rounds. After training, he participated in Operation: Just Cause in 1989 and Operation: Desert Storm in 1991, where he served under the command of Colonel William Ryan and Ryan's executive officer, Lieutenant Cameron. Cameron died in Gibbs' arms after being mortally wounded in an engagement. Gibbs was severely wounded in Desert Storm and Spent nineteen days in a coma as a result.
In early 1991, Gibbs' wife, Shannon, and eight-year-old daughter, Kelly, were murdered by a drug dealer, Pedro Hernandez, who then fled to Mexico to avoid prosecution. Shortly thereafter, Gibbs followed Hernandez and killed the man in retaliation.
Soon after his revenge, Gibbs came under investigation for the murder of Hernandez by a Marine Corps Lieutenant Lara Macy. After heavy interrogation, Macy compiled the evidence against Gibbs and buried it because she felt that the killing was just, and protected Gibbs for the next twenty years. Her murder, in connection to the Hernandez case, was designed to affect Gibbs by the death of one of his close friends and as a reminder that Hernandez's death would still haunt him, twenty years on.
Prior to joining NCIS, Gibbs was attached to a military operation involved in performing interdiction of the drug trade in Colombia. During the course of the operation, Gibbs was wounded and nursed back to health by a Colombian woman, Rosa Tamayo. Mike Franks was also somehow involved in the operation, as indicated by his evacuation of Tamayo to Washington D.C. The exact nature of the operation and Gibbs' role in it were classified
Gibbs joined NIS in June 1992, shortly before the name changed to NCIS in August 1992. He served under Special Agent Michael "Mike" Franks until the man's retirement in 1996, following the terrorist attack on Khobar Towers. Gibbs then served in various assignments, including one possibly in Kosovo and one in 1999, which brought him into contact with NCIS Special Agent Jenny Shepard, who later became the NCIS Director.
In 2001, Gibbs finished an "Agent Afloat" assignment aboard a ship in the Mediterranean Sea. In that same year, he was given his own MCRT at the Washington Field Office of NCIS, where he hired former Baltimore Police Department Detective Tony DiNozzo. Doctor Donald "Ducky" Mallard and forensic scientist Abby Sciuto were already employed by NCIS at this time, but worked especially closely with Gibbs and his team. After foiling a terrorist attack on the President a couple of years later, Gibbs recruited former Secret Service Agent Caitlin "Kate" Todd. A year later, he transferred Special Agent Timothy McGee from the Norfolk Office, completing his team. In 2005, Kate was fatally shot by Ari Haswari, and after assisting Gibbs in avenging Kate's death, Mossad Officer Ziva David was attached to his team as a Mossad liaison.
Roughly a year after Ziva's arrival, Gibbs was caught in an explosion while undercover, and when he awoke he had no memory of the events following his first coma in 1991. Through the efforts of Jenny Shepard, Ziva, and Mike Franks, he recovered his memories, but was unable to avert an attack on a U.S. Navy vessel, due in part both to his memory loss and secrecy concerns from higher up the chain of command. Gibbs' anger over the loss of the sailors and Marines led him to retire to Mexico with Mike Franks, leaving his team behind. His retirement did not last long. Two different cases involving both Ziva and his friend, FBI Special Agent Tobias Fornell, led Gibbs to return from Mexico to render his assistance. After the case involving Fornell was solved, Gibbs was permanently reinstated as head of the MCRT, relieving Tony of the position, who had taken it at Gibbs' request when he retired.
During his time as an NCIS agent, Gibbs has won seven Meritorious Service Medals, the most recent of which was awarded for capturing a serial killer. Gibbs, however, never appears at the ceremonies, and the awards are usually accepted by Tony on Gibbs' behalf.
'wikipedia.com'
