Each step Marine Sgt. Joey Jones takes brings him closer to the life he had before losing his legs to a bomb blast in Afghanistan.
In the nine months since he was injured, Jones has gone through extensive surgeries and rehabilitation at two military hospitals near Washington, D.C.. He’s graduated from a bed to a wheelchair and gone through three sets of artificial legs.
He has also started college classes, raised nearly $50,000 for wounded veterans’ charities and earned an assignment briefing the military brass on what a wounded warrior goes through from a combat injury to life afterward.
Most of those events have taken place far from his home in Dawnville, Ga., so when he comes back, as he has for Easter weekend, familiar faces are welcome but often surprised.
“People look at me like I’m a ghost, they really do,” Joey said in an interview at his grandmother’s Dawnville home, just up the hill from his parents’ house.