Gerald Julies Bertinot, Jr. attended Cathedral High School in Lafayette and graduated from Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, Georgia. He later received a degree in history from The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. He obtained his law degree from the University of South Carolina in 1965.

Upon receiving his commission in the U. S. Army, he served in Vietnam in the mid-1960s and received a Brown Star. He was legal advisor to the Brigade Commander and liaison with the U. S. Embassy legal staff and Judge Advocate operations. After being an advisor for the Courts Martial Investigation, he was assigned to Louisiana to conduct security investigations.

He worked for Pan American Petroleum Corporation in New Orleans and later joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a Special Agent from 1968 to 1981. In order to help quell the Native-American uprising at Wounded Knee, he was temporarily assigned to Rapid City, South Dakota. From 1974 to 1981, he was a Special Duty Appointee of the FBI as Firearms Instructor and SWAT team member.

In 1981, he was appointed to the United States Attorney’s Office, Western District of Louisiana and became supervisor and chief of the criminal division. From 1977 to 1999, he served as inspector for Executive Office of potential US Attorneys in Washington, D. C. After 33 years of service to the federal government, Bertinot retired in 1999 and began serving as an instructor and director of the Acadiana Law Enforcement Training Academy at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. From 2004 to 2006, he served as Chief of Police for UL Lafayette. From 2007 to July 2008, he was employed by the U.S. Department of Justice to serve in Kabul, Afghanistan, as part of a Department of Justice Rule of Law Program. He was assigned to the
U.S. Embassy in Kabul, and acted as an advisor to the criminal justice task force part of the Afghan Counternarcotics program requiring him to travel throughout various Provinces of the country making presentations to investigators, prosecutors and judges. In January, 2010, he joined the training staff of IDS International as a consultant for pre-deployment training of military and civilian personnel assigned to Afghanistan.

Bertinot is married to Brenda Bertinot.