ABOUT THIS STORY
In 2010, the Times Free Press sent a reporter, photographer and videographer to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, to report on the rehabilitation of Sgt. Joey Jones, a U.S. Marine from North Georgia who became a double amputee after an injury suffered while doing the dangerous work of a bomb tech in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province.Since then, Jones has become a nationally recognized voice on veterans’ issues.Times Free Press reporter Patrick Filbin caught up with Jones on a recent visit home to Whitfield County and reports on the many ways his life has changed since he stepped on an IED nine years ago.
There’s a joke that Joey Jones likes to use when he feels the need to ease the tension in a room or in his own head.
To calm himself down, he uses it to remind himself of the obstacles he’s had to overcome. When he faces challenges today – big or small – it brings him back to a time when the stakes were higher.
Jones will feel out a room before using the line. For nearly a decade, Jones, 33, has told his story to thousands of people, given motivational speeches to NFL teams and acted alongside a three-time Academy Award-winning actor.
On Tuesday afternoon, he stood at the front of a classroom at his alma mater, Southeast Whitfield High School in Georgia. The room was crowded with about 30 honor students.