Built in the field. Not in a classroom.

As the Marine Expeditionary Brigade’s time in Kuwait was drawing to a close and new orders had been issued, 6,000 Marines had already departed by sea. Gilbert remained behind as the senior officer on the ground from the Brigade. Days before the Military Sealift Command ships would depart, nearly 900 pieces of equipment, vehicles, cargo containers, and engineering equipment, failed agricultural inspection. Not one or two items. Nine hundred.

No one senior to him was available for guidance. The Brigade Deputy Chief of Staff, on ship and conducting a sensitive mission, told him to do the best he could. No precedent existed. No playbook applied.

He built a plan. He contracted local laborers. He organized the few Marines who remained. He made decisions to discard high-density but low-priority items when the math demanded it. He led the re-inspection effort personally. Every major piece cleared. Every piece made it home. Had he not acted, that equipment would have remained in Kuwait at unknown cost, separated from the Marines who depended on it.

A battalion of 500 Marines and Sailors conducting pre-deployment training in the California desert could not get the repair parts and life support they needed ahead of a deployment to Iraq. The Chief of Staff to the Commanding General called Gilbert into his office on a Friday and gave him a directive: fly out Sunday, start Monday, identify the problem and fix it.

His reputation as a fixer is what led to the assignment. Upon arrival, he talked to the Battalion Commanding Officer, the Operations Officer, the Sergeant Major, and Marines he trusted on the ground. He discovered the root of the problem: a formal funding agreement required a finance office at the next higher headquarters to establish the funding. They had not done so.

He opted to set up the funding out of his own finance office. He made arrangements with the installation finance office to accept payment. He notified the higher headquarters about their mistake and how he had already corrected it. He verified repair parts were flowing and life support was restored. He flew home Thursday. Three days of work. It remains his favorite mission.

As a logistics operations officer supporting coalition forces across Al Anbar Province, Gilbert helped plan and coordinate two nationwide Iraqi elections. His team transported election officials to polling sites away from their hometowns to protect their identities and reduce the risk of being targeted. The work was dangerous, the stakes were human, and the margin for error was zero.

During the same period, upon learning that U.S. forces were bringing Iraqi civilian casualties of a catastrophic event to the base for medical treatment, he went to the hospital. He donated blood. Then he helped move the wounded from vehicles to triage, which had expanded into the gravel parking lot outside the main doors.

Nobody ordered him to the hospital. Nobody asked him to donate blood or carry wounded strangers through a gravel parking lot. He went because it was the right thing to do.

When Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana, senior Marine Corps leaders assembled a Special Purpose Task Force to travel to New Orleans for recovery efforts. A young, inexperienced officer was chosen to handle financial management for the Task Force. Recognizing the situation would not follow established norms, Gilbert called him to his office.

He spent more than two hours on preparation. He discussed what the officer might encounter, how to handle the unanticipated, and where the standard procedures would fail. The officer took furious notes while Gilbert drew scenarios on a white board.

Days later, the officer borrowed a satellite phone to call Gilbert from the roof of a flooded building in New Orleans. He had questions. Gilbert answered them. The officer listened, executed, and delivered solid financial metrics for the mission.

That is coaching. Prepare someone thoroughly. Give them the tools to think. Then let them execute while you stay close enough to help when they call.

Seventy years after leaving the military, a veteran who had served in combat in Korea needed help. Gilbert worked the case persistently, helping the veteran collect evidence for a petition to the Department of the Army. In 2022, the Army decided to rescind his court-martial conviction, overturn his dishonorable discharge, and upgrade it to honorable service. The Army also awarded him multiple decorations, including a Purple Heart Medal for wounds sustained in combat.

Suddenly eligible for VA benefits, the veteran enrolled for healthcare, applied for disability compensation, and began making arrangements for his burial. Gilbert connected him with the Wake Forest School of Law Veterans Law Clinic. The veteran was invited to participate in Veterans Day events on campus, culminating with a ceremony to present the Purple Heart Medal during halftime of a football game.

The case produced no revenue. There was no business justification. It was the right thing to do, and Gilbert did not stop until it was done.