The journey from rural roots in small town Georgia to the Fox News studio was a long and treacherous one for Johnny Joey Jones. While he may have grown up poor in the financial sense, he was blessed with a large, close-knit family that would later become his life support following a horrific encounter with an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) that took his legs in Afghanistan in 2010.
In Unbroken Bonds of Battle (part of Fox News’ Modern Warriors series), Jones showcases his life growing up in the rural South and the days and years leading up to his enlistment in the Marine Corps where he served as Staff Sergeant. Like many Marines, the Corps would become part of Jones’ extended family, a brotherhood of soldiers who were made inseparable through the experiences of combat.
Jones became an EOD Tech, short for Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician, one of the deadliest jobs in the War on Terror—the real-life Hurt Locker. The book consists of personal accounts from soldiers and others close to Jones, including fellow Marines and EOD techs—a special subset of warfighters who have the unenviable task of staring death in the eye daily to save fellow soldiers. While a sniper may provide a similar battlefield life insurance policy, if an EOD tech misses, they’re often dead. In the bloodiest years of the War on Terror—including the year in which Jones’ suffered his injuries—staggering percentages of bomb techs were killed or injured in combat.
