Marine Ball, 1993
Family photo

 

 

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Biography – John Gillgren aka Maynard

Retired from the CIA, May 2012

Currently living in Fernandina Beach, FL with my wife, Joyce, of 30 years.

 

For the past 50 years:

After high school, I attended Orange Coast College, Costa Mesa, CA for one semester and worked at Disneyland until Feb 1966. However, on 15 Mar 1966, I entered the army and volunteered for Special Forces. I attended Special Forces Training Group from Sept 66-Jun 67 and was transferred to Okinawa with th e 1st SFG, where I was immediately assigned to team A-114 and prepared for deployment to Vietnam.

Our team arrived in Nhe Trang, Vietnam in Jan 1968. We first flew to Saigon and deployed to a small camp at Ho Ngoc Tau on the Cambodian border. We spent three weeks there then moved to Da Nang, CCN, 5 th SFG (SOG). Once in Da Nang, we were informed that we were going to be sent to Khe Sanh. We were there for about 60 days during the siege. I didn't find this out until later, but Mike Calvert was also there with the Marines. It would have been nice to see a friendly face. After Khe Sanh, the team was sent back to Da Nang for the remainder of our tour that ended in Aug 1968. The launch site for our missions was through Phu Bai. A sad footnote to this, in May 1968 while attempting to be extracted, an ARVN chopper carrying one of our medics went down, and we were never able to recover his remains. (In 1991, while in the Reserves, I spoke with the MIA/POW recovery team at Camp Smith, Hawaii, and gave them the location. In Feb 2002, they sent in a recovery team and located the aircraft, but unfortunately there were no remains.)

From Aug 1968 to Feb 1970, I was on Okinawa as the lead instructor and senior radio chief for A-114. We did numerous TDY deployments to Japan, Korea, Philippines, Thailand, and Taiwan. I met and married Michiko in 1969 and had our first child, Kathlene later that year. March 1970 I was sent to Ft Devens, MA for jump master school. Once jumpmaster course was completed, I was deployed to Vietnam back with the 5 th SFG.

From July 70-July 71, I was the Radio Chief, at one of our sites. My responsibility, besides include the communications training and redeployment of Cambodians back to their country to fight the Khmer Rouge. It was a great assignment. When the tour was over in July 1971, I went back to Okinawa as the radio operator supervisor on two different “A” teams. Both teams were excellent as we traveled the Far East on numerous trips to conduct various training missions. In 1971, we lost our first son, Andrew. That was a heartbreaking experience.

The next year and a half was spent at Ft. Campbell, KY. It seemed the powers at the Pentagon were sending SF NOC's to conventional units and I ended up there. This was not a highlight except for the birth of my son, Geoffrey in Nov 1974. In 1976, I was finally able to get an assignment to Darmstadt, Germany as the Battalion Communications Chief for with a nuclear weapons unit. There were four subordinate companies I was responsible for, Mannheim, Darmstadt, Muenster Dieburg, and Wildflecken on the Czech border. In 1976, my second daughter, Christine was born.

I had to leave Germany just short of tour as my older sister had been diagnosed with cancer, and the outlook was not good. I arrived back in California just a month before she passed away in 1979. I separated from the Army shortly after that, went through a divorce and received custody of our three children. During this time, I was an instructor with the Hollywood Stuntmen's Association .

From Feb 1983-89 I was employed by the Department of State, (Foreign Service Officer), and my first assignment was at the American Embassy, San Jose, Costa Rica as a communications officer. There I met Joyce Wells. She is the best thing to ever happen to me. When I was deployed to Grenada during their uprising and immediately after that to Nicaragua, Joyce stayed with my children the entire time. I was relieved to find out that the kids really loved her. We married Oct 1984 and have been happily married since. After Costa Rica, we spent some time in the US, followed by an assigned to Kinshasa, Zaire (the Congo) for two years. We returned in 1988. In 1989, I resigned from the DOS to complete my BS in education at George Mason University. During my senior year in 1991, I wrote and published an article in the International Counsel of Health; Physical Education and Recreation (ICHPER) titled the Transfer of Learning Among Similar Throwing Skills . Later that year, I was invited to the University of Limerick, (Ireland) to make a presentation on this subject at the ICHPER Convention. It was a rewarding experience. In 1992 we were transferred to Caracas, Venezuela on my wife's orders where I taught at the international school for three years . I also completed my MS in Sociology of Sport and Sport Managemen t through the University of Leicester, UK .

In the summer of 1995, we returned from Caracas, and I secured a position with Northern Virginia Community College as an adjunct professor in the health and physical education department. I was with NVCC for eight years when a contract company supporting CIA recruited me. Then in early 2003, I was brought on board as a staff officer in the Counterintelligence Center as a targeting officer. In 2006 in was transferred to Baghdad for 14 months conducting electronic operations. At the end of my tour, we had accounted for over 500 apprehensions. I returned to the U.S. and was assigned to Counterterrorism Center, where I was a lead instructor traveling the globe assisting our officers and clients. I retired from the government in 2012 . Joyce and I bought a house in Fernandina Beach, Florida just north of Jacksonville, and only a mile from the beach.

General Notes

As I have stated, I married Joyce Well on Oct 6, 1984, and we have two daughters, Andrea and Kendra. Kathlene is now divorced and has three children Tatyana Saba (who does some acting), Ryan and Nicholas, who live in California. Geoff is married to Tanya, and they have two sons, Joshua, a prospective NHL star, and Riley, a prospective Mt. Everest adventurer. They live in Atlanta. Christine is married to Frank Miali, and they have two sons, Stephen, now a sophomore in high school and future police officer, and Dominic, a kindergartner. They live in Omaha. Andrea is married to Andrew Wallace, an Air-Traffic Controller and pilot, and they reside just a couple of miles from us in Fernandina Beach. Kendra just married Adam Wright, an engineer and highly respected high school wrestling coach. Kendra is an elementary school physical education teacher . They live in Harrisonburg, VA.

Joyce and I enjoy traveling. When I took an R&R from Baghdad, we met in Venice, Italy and took a cruise to Croatia, Greece, Egypt, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria and the Ukraine. Other trips included a cruise around the Hawaiian island, one into the Caribbean and one that took us to the Eastern Seaboard of Canada. Next summer, we are scheduled to cruise from Sweden, with stops in Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany Denmark, and Norway. We are looking forward to this trip very much . Since my time with my parents, my military experience, civilian government employment and personal travel, I have been to over a hundred countries and have enjoyed every.

In retirement, I have finally had the time to concentrate on writing and completing some stories which I have been working on for the past 20 years. I have written four books, The Treasure of Malaga Cove, The Treasure of Cheng Shih, The Treasure of Ocracoke Island and The Treasure of Jean Lafitte. They are young adult adventure stories. Next in this series is The Treasure of Cathedral Tower. I have also completed two cold-war novels in the Anthony Bogdani mystery series titled The Song of the Wind Chimes (now in final editing) and 21 , which I have finished but still needs editing. In the near future, I will complete writing the Poyntz Conspiracy . My books are available in Amazon or through me.

 

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