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Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Johnny "Joey" Jones lost both of his legs in combat in Afghanistan in 2010 and was medically retired in 2012. Today at the Pentagon, after 14 years out of uniform, he reenlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth administered the oath of enlistment to Jones, whom he knows from working together at Fox News, where Jones is a contributor across a variety of broadcast platforms and offers insights on military topics.
"I don't think there's a better spokesman for the Marine Corps, understating what it's all about, what it means to serve, the brotherhood that exists, than how Joey talks about it on television so that the American people understand it and connect to it in a visceral way," Hegseth said. "You can talk about it academically, or from a detached perspective, or you can talk about it having lived it, the way he has. ... It's in his bones, it's in his heart and soul, wearing that uniform."
For Jones, Hegseth said, the Marine Corps values have always been a full-time thing.
"Semper Fi means that for him every day," Hegseth said. "He's just a good human being who does the right things for the right reasons. And when I first got word that he was interested in getting back in uniform, it actually didn't surprise me."
The secretary said he knows Jones is motivated by changes that have been made in the department over the past 16 months and wants to be a part of it. He also said Jones, being a visible contributor on military matters, will be a good role model for young people who are also considering military service.
"Young Americans are looking up at the men and women in uniform and saying, 'I want to do that profession, the profession of arms,'" Hegseth said. "And when they see that the guy they know on TV ... wants to get back in uniform and be a part of that ... that gives me the shivers just saying it. I think it's an absolute no-brainer."
Jones enlisted in April 2005 and for a time fixed radios. Later, he retrained as an explosive ordnance disposal technician. He deployed twice in his Marine Corps career, first to Iraq in September 2007 and then to Afghanistan in March 2010, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.
While on that deployment to Afghanistan, his EOD team destroyed nearly 80 improvised explosive devices. However, on Aug. 6, 2010, he stepped on an improvised explosive device. The explosion took both his legs, above the knee, and injured his arms as well.
After that, Jones spent two years recovering at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. While at the hospital, Jones founded a program where veterans in more advanced stages of recovery could mentor those who had been recently injured.
Living in Washington, he served a year on Capitol Hill as part of a fellowship with the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs and also took college classes. Upon his recovery, he was able to enroll at Georgetown University and complete his degree there in 2014.
Jones said he opted to reenlist because he said he feels he owes a debt to the Marine Corps and the nation. After he was injured, he said, his family was instrumental in helping him heal but something was missing.
"The last job I had in uniform, my job was to get better, it was to heal; it's very selfish thing," he said. "And then I retired. And there's nothing wrong with that, but it was unfinished business."
Now, as a Marine Corps reservist, Jones will serve the military again doing work inside the Pentagon related to explosive ordnance disposal policy. He'll no longer be destroying bombs in the field — but as a Marine who did that work and endured one of the highest costs of being an EOD tech — he'll bring that first-hand knowledge with him to developing new policies and solving problems for others in the Marine Corps EOD community. He'll be a staff sergeant while doing it.
"My job now is going to be to support ... everyone ... that wears the Marine Corps uniform and the EOD badge, and engineers too," he said. "If my job is to get coffee, or to type up paperwork, or to respond to an email, or to use the gift of gab to help them convince some engineers that we need that money, or to convince the Navy that we need that capability, then that's what I'm going to do."
