If you haven’t heard of Johnny Joey Jones, aka “Triple J” to those close to him, you’re missing out on a true American hero. As a U.S. Marine Corps explosive ordnance disposal technician, Jones served in both Iraq and Afghanistan protecting American troops from bombs. During his last deployment to Afghanistan, he was responsible for disarming and destroying more than 80 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and thousands of pounds of other unknown bulk explosives. After recovering from a career-ending injury in which he lost both legs above the knee, the hero Marine veteran now serves as a Fox News military analyst and is also an author. We recently caught up with Triple J to discuss his new book, Behind The Badge: Answering the Call to Serve on America’s Homefront, which will be released on June 17.
Behind the Badge is a Tale of Unsung Heroes
Jones’ first book, Unbroken: Bonds of Battle, took a deep dive into military heroes: those who made great sacrifices in other countries to keep us safe here at home, and sold more than 100,000 copies. His new book is a tale of unsung heroes closer to the home front: first responders who daily make equally great sacrifices for our safety and security.
“The premise of the book is to understand who these people are that keep us safe,” Jones said in an exclusive interview with Hook & Barrel magazine. “We use the term ‘first responders’ pretty loosely in the book, because there isn't necessarily a technical definition. But what we’re really looking at are those who put themselves in harm’s way to keep us safe here at home rather than abroad like our military. So, it's a focus on those in public service here, from local municipalities to federal agencies.”
Jones said most Americans don’t realize the sacrifice made by every first responder, no matter where they work and what agency or department they work for. It’s not just those who are involved in huge, news-making events that receive scars they live with for the rest of their lives.
“What’s interesting about the book is that we've got an LAPD guy who was on the bomb squad,” Jones said. “We've got a Baltimore County SWAT guy that I went hunting with, so I actually know him. I could have gone and gotten those who responded to the Oklahoma City bombing, Boston bombing, 9/11, or school shootings, but what makes this book really hit home is I'm interviewing a hometown firefighter, like the guy that grew up next door to me, and he's talking about this traumatic event that you don't realize happens in every small town. Events that you can't get away from no matter where you live.
"You can live in the most rural area you can think of, and there's going to be a horrible car accident. There's going to be domestic violence. There's going to be a house fire that you don't get everybody out of.
“That's what's great about this book is that it really ties it all together. You might see it on Chicago Fire and think, ‘Wow, that's amazing.’ You see your hometown fire department and think, ‘Oh, they did the same thing.’”
In Behind the Badge, Jones devotes chapters to nine hometown heroes, telling their stories and the difficulties they face in their occupations. The opening chapter is about Georgian Clay Hedrick, a firefighter for nearly 30 years who worked his days off as an EMT and his third day job in the 911 dispatch call center.
“Of those three things you'd think the most traumatic would probably be riding on the ambulance, but he actually did the shortest amount of time at the call center,” Jones said. “He said that was one of the most stressful jobs anybody could ever do. He said it felt like being air traffic control when all the planes have crashed already. Once cell phones came to be in everybody's pocket, it got harder, because if there was one accident on the interstate, there might be 80 people calling the same call center to report it, and you have to treat each and every one of those calls as if it's an individual event.”
Jones said that while the mental trauma military members go through is widely understood, many local first responders face similar traumatic events every day on their hometown streets.
“Our worst day in our lives is another day on the job for them,” he said. “They live and work in the battlefield. As a fireman or police officer, when you drive through an intersection taking your kids to school, you remember that two years ago you saw a kid die in a car wreck at that traffic light. The amount of weight they carry is heavy.
“The point I think Americans need to understand is, we spent 20 years telling Americans that we should support veterans and the mental health trauma that they go through fighting the war and understand it, not demonize it. What we don't realize is that along with this national conversation at the veteran level, we have zero conversation at the first responder level.”
In The End
Ultimately, Jones wants Americans to realize that these unsung hometown heroes are just as heroic as those risking life and limb overseas to protect our way of life.
“We walk through our lives every day with danger all around us,” he said. “When you walk out your front door, whether it means to or not, everything's trying to kill you. You walk out on the road, there's a car that's going to run over you. If you don't turn the stove off when you leave, your house is going to burn down. The hazard that we live in and around to have technology and mobility is immense, but we have this entitlement that if something goes wrong, somebody will be there to save us. We just don't think twice about it.
“If we get in a car wreck, somebody's going to come and make sure we're OK. If our house catches on fire, somebody's going to show up with a hose and put it out. We live with this sense of entitlement, not necessarily in a negative way, but in a very practical way.”
Jones believes that we should, instead, be thankful for those in our communities that choose to serve the public day in and day out.
“How often do we sit and think about what it takes to have that sense of security, and how grateful are we to have it?” he asked. “Because unlike our military, which is a national effort, the only reason we have this in small, rural towns is because somebody said, ‘I'm going to do it. I'm going to sacrifice a lucrative career, I'm going to sacrifice peace of mind.’
“That's our neighbor who decided that, not just some stranger. That's somebody we go to church with, somebody that our kids play ball with. These are people in our communities who make those sacrifices.”